Like Ruby, Benji, and Guy, readers will want to share Blocks! (Picture book. 2-4)
A cleverly simple book builds skills as well as towers.
Ruby, a dark-skinned, dark-haired child wearing red, has red blocks, while Benji, a white boy clad in blue, has blue. Once introduced in bold mixed-media illustrations set against empty white backgrounds, they engage in parallel play and build separate towers with their respective blocks. Ruby is on the verso and Benji on the recto, with the gutter neatly separating them—except for an errant red block that barely sneaks onto Benji’s side. With the next page turn, Benji takes a red block, and Ruby looks on, aghast. After she watches him walk away, the next double-page spread shows the children in a furious tug of war across the gutter that sets them up for the next chaotic spread. They’ve now pulled apart and tumble onto opposite pages amid a storm of blue and red blocks. Once they gather themselves they notice they both have blocks of each color, and they build a big blue and red structure together. That could be a fine end to the picture book, but Dickson has more in store: a page turn shows Guy, a young black boy clad in green, pulling a wagon with green blocks. “What will they do now?” asks the final line of text, leaving possible answers open for readers to speculate on.
Like Ruby, Benji, and Guy, readers will want to share Blocks! (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8656-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.
You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!
What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0534-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...
A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.
As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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