FLIP, FLAP, FLY!

An adorable assortment of baby animals flap, wiggle and splash their way through the forest, spotting each other in turn as they play with their mamas. Human babies and toddlers will love guessing which animal comes next as they follow clues from Root’s contagious, rhyming text and Walker’s bright and warm acrylic illustrations. Onomatopoeic verbs—“flip flap fly,” “splish splash swim”—array themselves in playful swaths descending down the page, leading readers’ eyes through the choreographed page turns, which piggyback on the rhyme scheme to prompt readers and listeners in the identification game. The cleverness of the design combines with the animals’ toddler-friendly round shapes and smiles to provide a developmentally appropriate visual accompaniment to the well-paced text. This story begs to be enjoyed over and over again by both babies and their grown-ups, who will find themselves chanting it rather than reading it by the second time through. Despite its slightly smaller-than-average size, the large animals in uncluttered compositions will make this a hit for group as well as individual sharing. (Picture book. 1-5)