Bright full-color photographs, featuring bold objects and dramatic contrasts, characterize this first book about shapes in the Growing Tree series. Dotlich’s text is comprised of the names of objects, forming a rhyming catalog of items for children to point to: “Tangerines, garbanzo beans, a button on a belly! A bubble, a bead, a bagel, a ball, the lid from a jar of jelly.” Alliterative sounds are pleasingly grouped together, and against the vibrant hand-painted backgrounds, sizes are cleverly juxtaposed—a grape stands next to a globe, a pea is dwarfed by a pancake. An invitation on the final spread—“What else is ROUND? Your turn to try!”’sends toddlers through a spread of familiar objects that are either round or square. An expertly executed precursor to the I Spy books and their kind. (Picture book. 1-3)
