For little animal lovers everywhere.
This simple title features two toddler favorites: colors and animals.
Each spread features a photograph of a vibrantly colored animal—a blue macaw, pink flamingo, red snake, brown sea horse, black bear, green frog, yellow canary, gray elephant, orange bird and white owl—their bold colors standing out sharply against a plain white background. The only text is the name of each color, printed in a shade that closely matches the featured animal in a clear, lowercase type. Babies and toddlers will enjoy learning to identify colors with the help of these striking animal images. Less successful is another volume in this series called Creature Numbers. This title sets up a familiar pattern, with present participles emphasizing animal antics: “1 kangaroo jumping,” “2 tigers playing,” “3 chimpanzees running,” and so on, until readers arrive at the jarring “6 sheared sheep.” The next page takes readers back to the original pattern—sort of: Instead of seeing seven sharks, as might be expected, they’ll see just one, with the text reading: “7 fins paddling.” Particularly troubling here is the fact that the fins are a bit difficult to identify and count. These flaws notwithstanding, little ones are likely to be mesmerized by the animals, here again in sharp focus against stark white backgrounds.
For little animal lovers everywhere. (Board book. 6 mos.-2)Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1668-6
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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