Colorful, kid-friendly fun—and Momo! What more could readers want? (Board book. 2-5)
Books, blog, Instagram, and Facebook—where else can readers find Momo?
Momo, the black-and-white border collie, is back in his third hide-and-seek board book, and he is still a lot of fun to find on each page. Using a format similar to his previous two board books, author and photographer Knapp (Find Momo Coast to Coast, 2015) has Momo hiding in an enjoyable variety of settings, including a play set in a backyard, the corner of a library, in a barnyard, in a kitchen, and in a preschool. On each verso page are four color photographs of what readers should be looking for, each labeled underneath in uppercase letters—Momo, of course, along with three common objects that are to be found in the photograph on the opposite page. Objects include a red pail, a yellow rain boot, a clock, a steel watering can, and a blue birdhouse. This is an enjoyably challenging way for young children to learn the names of familiar household and outdoor objects as well as colors. Some of the objects found are in a different orientation from the one that is shown; the gardening fork is shown vertically on verso and horizontally on the right, which makes them occasionally difficult to spot. Similar in mission to the I Spy or Where’s Waldo books for this age group, the excellent photography’s artful compositions, including the hidden Momo, make it a lot more entertaining.
Colorful, kid-friendly fun—and Momo! What more could readers want? (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59474-958-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
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
Best for one-on-one reading and exploration with conversations, this tall and artistic board book brings together mystery,...
This debut lift-the-flap book by printmaker Weston follows the life cycle of a monarch butterfly with detailed black-and-white illustrations and flaps that reveal flashes of brilliant orange, yellow, purple, and green.
The stunning black-and-white images are precise and meticulous, with a woodcut feel, and the brightly colored undersides of the flaps bring the liveliness of the outdoors into the book. Information about the butterfly’s metamorphosis is conveyed more through flashes of color under the flaps than in the spare poetic text, limited to the deliberate choice of a couple of words per page (“An egg / a feast // a change / a stretch”). Each page features a number of flaps, showing the butterfly in its various stages of metamorphosis, migration, and hibernation. A variety of plants and their flowers that serve as hosts for the monarchs and food for their caterpillars as well as a place for their hibernation are shown, but no additional information is included. Young toddlers may have difficulty in finding and manipulating the flaps at first, but they will be awed by what they reveal.
Best for one-on-one reading and exploration with conversations, this tall and artistic board book brings together mystery, surprise, and wonder for children and adults alike. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9317-6
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Big Picture/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
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