Despite the flaws in layout and design in both books, the breathtaking works of art give youngsters much to pore over.
The San Antonio Museum of Art, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation and Trinity University Press team up to produce a bilingual Spanish and English ode to color and art.
Each single- or double-page spread features one shape and spotlights various works from the museum’s collection of contemporary, 20th-century, traditional and folk art from around the world. The text, in an unnecessarily small font, engages readers with simple questions about the shape and art in question. A bold, bilingual heading paired with a dotted-outline image announces the shape. Most of the art choices are really quite stunning and will engage young readers, such as a detail from the Frank Stella painting Double Scramble for the “square” page and a folk sculpture of a sun from Metepec, Mexico, as an example of a circle. Unfortunately, the layout of some spreads is overly busy and may make it hard for youngsters to appreciate the art and the shape in question. The “star” page presents some wonderful images squeezed on one page that would have been better served on two. The sister title, Colores Everywhere, has similar strengths and problems. The final spread of each title shows thumbnails of the artwork from the previous pages and lists the artists and their media. The series works better to encourage art appreciation than as an introduction to shapes and colors.
Despite the flaws in layout and design in both books, the breathtaking works of art give youngsters much to pore over. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59534-140-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Trinity Univ. Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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