Definitely not household or neighborhood noises…except for the lion, perhaps.
Sound-clip enhanced introductions to cries and calls of a dozen creatures native to central and southern Africa.
The animals are relatively common and a mix of familiar (at least in type) and less high profile, including the African elephant, the hippo, the cheetah, the black-backed jackal, the pearl-spotted owl, and the chacma baboon. Each gets a large individual close-up portrait photo that has been digitally placed into a natural landscape opposite notes on habitat, average size, and other basic facts, plus descriptions of vocalizations—some of which can be heard by pressing the appropriate touch-sensitive area on a plastic panel attached to the edge. Young armchair travelers whose only contact with wild animals is in zoos may be in for an ear-opening experience. Though the lion sounds like some guy gargling and the elephant’s trumpeting as if it were recorded indoors from another room, several of the generally sharp, loud recordings take surprising turns, from a zebra’s astonishing cascade of birdlike trills and a cheetah who sounds for all the world like a yappy dog to the gray go-away bird, which really does seem to be grumbling “go’way, go’way.” Children uninterested in the zoological detail can still enjoy creating a cacophony by pressing the buttons, and vice versa. Batteries are replaceable and come with a printed warning not to eat them.
Definitely not household or neighborhood noises…except for the lion, perhaps. (Informational novelty. 2-4)Pub Date: June 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-2281-0251-9
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Ho-hum.
A riff on the familiar lullaby depicts various animal parents, and then a human father, soothing their sleepy little ones.
An opening spread includes the traditional first verse of the titular lullaby, but instead of depicting a human baby in a treetop cradle, the accompanying illustration shows a large tree as habitat to the animals that are highlighted on subsequent pages. First the perspective zooms in on a painterly illustration rendered in acrylics of a mother squirrel cuddling her baby with text reading “Rock-a-bye Squirrel, / high in the tree, / in Mommy’s arms, / cozy as can be.” In this spread and others the cadence doesn’t quite fit with the familiar tune, and repeated verses featuring different animals—all opening with the “Rock-a-bye” line—don’t give way to the resolution. No winds blow, no boughs break, and the repetitive forced rhythm of the verse could cause stumbles when attempting a read-aloud. The final image of a human father and baby, whose skin tone and hair texture suggest that they are perhaps of South Asian descent, provides pleasing visual resolution in a book with art that outshines text.
Ho-hum. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3753-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Handsome but so sneaky as to be frustrating.
Youngsters are invited to find the object or creature that doesn’t fit in with a similar grouping of animals.
In arrays spread out on (mostly) double-page spreads, a rocking horse hides among a drove of real horses, a cat sits with a variety of breeds of dogs, and so on. The project is wordless except for the introductory text that introduces the game with echoes of Sesame Street: “One of these things is almost like the others….” Some of the groupings are quite clever: a straight belt is placed amid a row of curvy snakes, a mechanical crane is perched between a living crane and two other long-legged birds, and the sole human figure, who looks to be a shirtless white male, is the only being to walk on two legs in a primate troop. To assist guessers, the final double-page spread shows all the outliers from the subsequent groupings. Using only yellow, purple, and a deep and dusky brown that is created when these two shades are mixed, Contraire uses stencils to create his figures against a creamy white background. While many of the animals and objects are instantly recognizable, the contrast of the mostly yellow critters against white backgrounds makes identification tricky for the board-book set. And while the book design is handsome, the lack of color variation in the art gives the offering a one-note feel.
Handsome but so sneaky as to be frustrating. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: May 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7148-7422-7
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Phaidon
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
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