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SPOTTY, STRIPY, SWIRLY

Name: SPOTTY, STRIPY, SWIRLY
Author: Jane Brocket
ISBN: 978-0-7613-4613-5

WHAT ARE PATTERNS?

by Jane Brocket & photographed by Jane Brocket ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2012

Another solid entry sure to attract the attention of art and math teachers alike.

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Patterning and ways of sorting are the focus of the third in Brocket's four-part series, and, as with her color and texture entries, her brightly colored close-up photos truly make the book.

Beginning with a definition, Brocket treats readers to a visual feast of patterns. Her up-close photos show a wide array of objects with their own distinctive patterns, from fabrics and architectural elements to food and plants. Simple arrangements of objects share a page with complex ones, and the familiar are mixed in with the new: a quilt, a candy-decorated cake, a garden full of lettuce, a dahlia, the shadow of a fence, a building’s windows, polka-dot socks. But Brocket does not stop there—she delves into the reasons for patterns. They help us identify plants, stay organized, decorate and plan, but, most of all, they are pleasing to the eye. While this entry lacks the great adjectives that made the first two in the series such standouts, the text does give children some words to help describe what they see—swirls, stripes, dots, zigzag. Brocket peppers the text with challenges that require children to identify the patterns, to look for more around them and to create their own, even pointing out how the same collection of rocks can be sorted in different ways to create different patterns.

Another solid entry sure to attract the attention of art and math teachers alike. (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: March 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-7613-4613-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner

Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
COLD, CRUNCHY, COLORFUL
by Jane Brocket ; photographed by Jane Brocket

- BOOK REVIEW
1 COOKIE, 2 CHAIRS, 3 PEARS
by Jane Brocket ; photographed by Jane Brocket

- BOOK REVIEW
CIRCLES, STARS, AND SQUARES
by Jane Brocket & photographed by Jane Brocket

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ON THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...

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Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.

The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.

While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: June 21, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
A PERFECT PLACE TO PLAY
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Jim Valeri

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
FIVE LITTLE BUNNIES
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino

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THE CRAYONS GO BACK TO SCHOOL

by Drew Daywalt ; illustrated by Oliver Jeffers ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2023

Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings.

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The Crayons head back to class in this latest series entry.

Daywalt’s expository text lays out the basics as various Crayons wave goodbye to the beach, choose a first-day outfit, greet old friends, and make new ones. As in previous outings, the perennially droll illustrations and hand-lettered Crayon-speak drive the humor. The ever wrapperless Peach, opining, “What am I going to wear?” surveys three options: top hat and tails, a chef’s toque and apron, and a Santa suit. New friends Chunky Toddler Crayon (who’s missing a bite-sized bit of their blue point) and Husky Toddler Crayon speculate excitedly on their common last name: “I wonder if we’re related!” White Crayon, all but disappearing against the page’s copious white space, sits cross-legged reading a copy of H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. And Yellow and Orange, notable for their previous existential argument about the color of the sun, find agreement in science class: Jupiter, clearly, is yellow AND orange. Everybody’s excited about art class—“Even if they make a mess. Actually…ESPECIALLY if they make a mess!” Here, a spread of crayoned doodles of butterflies, hearts, and stars is followed by one with fulsome scribbles. Fans of previous outings will spot cameos from Glow in the Dark and yellow-caped Esteban (the Crayon formerly known as Pea Green). (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Nothing new here but a nonetheless congenial matriculant in publishing’s autumnal rite of back-to-school offerings. (Picture book. 4-6)