A sense of fun, clear, uncluttered design, and construction that should hold up to heavy use make this board book's...
A book bound in a box, with layered die-cut board pages within, introduces a variety of animals for young children to practice counting.
A cheerful, begging dog peeks through a cutout on the extra-thick cover and provides a tactile surprise on the first page. Each successively larger die-cut page has a layered half-circle tab to make page turning easy for little fingers. A spotted pup is delightfully out of place on each page, from two kangaroos to nine fish. Older toddlers (or their parents, who will be asked to count the same animals again and again) can make a game out of finding the dog in unexpected places: in the kangaroo's pouch, on a lily pad, swimming underwater, or hanging improbably upside down with seven bats. (Perhaps that is why the dogs look so cheerful on the first and last spreads but slightly pained on the counting pages.) There is a fair amount of subtlety at work. Each dog is slightly different from the others, with its collar color matched to the animals on whose page it appears. The sturdy format and extra reinforcement afforded by the box that contains the tabbed pages will help this book hold up to rough handling by babies as they become book-toting toddlers.
A sense of fun, clear, uncluttered design, and construction that should hold up to heavy use make this board book's relatively high price well worth the extra expense. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-78392-7
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver.
The farmyard's chickens experience Halloween.
A round, full moon shines in the sky, and the chickens of Boynton's barnyard are feeling “nervous.” Pumpkins shine “with flickering eyes,” witches and wizards wander the pastures, and one chicken has seen “a mouse of enormous size.” It’s Halloween night, and readers will delight as the chickens huddle together and try to figure out what's going on. All ends well, of course, and in Boynton's trademark silly style. (It’s really quite remarkable how her ranks of white, yellow-beaked chickens evoke rows of candy corn.) At this point parents and children know what they're in for when they pick up a book by the prolific author, and she doesn't disappoint here. The chickens are silly, the pigs are cute, and the coloring and illustrations evoke a warmth that little ones wary of Halloween will appreciate. For children leery of the ghouls and goblins lurking in the holiday's iconography, this is a perfect antidote, emphasizing all the fun Halloween has to offer.
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7611-9300-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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