A movable feast of a board book.
A board book with movable parts, especially for little gardeners.
Equipped with a built-in handle, the book’s sturdy pages open top to bottom to display a vertically oriented spread depicting an up-close view of soil being readied for planting. Tabs push and pull to reveal a garden claw (labeled on the page) moving through the dirt, and then seeds in die-cut holes appear in another area. There are no human characters in the book, which underscores the interactivity demanded of the reader-as-gardener, but worms, bees, ladybugs, birds, butterflies, and a bunny enliven the spreads. Flaps and other movable parts on ensuing pages allow readers to water plants and to make them seem to grow as well as simulating other gardening activities such as staking tomato plants and weeding and thinning plots. The culminating spread moves from the garden into the house, where vegetables are peeled and shelled to be put into a cooking pot, and the final picture depicts a compost bin for the resulting scraps that will break down for use in the garden. Most parts of the book are impressively durable, and the bold illustrations and inviting interactivity successfully present gardening as the physical, rewarding activity it can be.
A movable feast of a board book. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 979-1-02760-367-1
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While an audience of young vehicle aficionados or avid skaters might be attracted, this is a disappointing and poorly...
Learn how Zambonis clean ice in this awkwardly shaped book.
In the voice of the Zamboni, dull pronouncements about each step of the ice-cleaning process give readers a rudimentary but adequate overview of how the vehicle works. The book is cut into the shape of a Zamboni machine (and driver), but the unusual format adds nothing of substance and even detracts from the story. Each page turn removes a section of the Zamboni, but the image under the cutaway doesn’t necessarily match, creating pages with two confusingly juxtaposed scenes. Though the pages are thick, they are prone to fraying, and the edges remain sharp and jab fingers painfully, especially around the severe cuts defining the driver’s face. The pen-and-ink–style digital art is underwhelming, and attempts to make the art feel lively fall flat. A puppy sitting next to the driver is far too rabbitlike, and the American flag found on every page looks odd, as if a poor quality sticker were applied over the images. There’s a single hockey player of color; the driver and crowds are white.
While an audience of young vehicle aficionados or avid skaters might be attracted, this is a disappointing and poorly designed book . (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-27773-9
Page Count: 8
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
To become coders, babies need to play with sequences, patterns, language, and logic—but not this book.
Another book that aims to jump-start toddlers’ STEM careers.
Using retro-style art and coding syntax well beyond a toddler’s comprehension, this board book tries to simplify the complex language of code. The pale-skinned girl clad in polka-dot onesies is certainly cute, maybe even gifted, but that doesn’t mean she can understand the principles of coding. The selected real-world examples of coding are valid. Baby telling a dog what to do and code telling computers what to do are parallel constructs. The problem is that babies, no matter how much we want them to, cannot yet comprehend such abstract concepts. Girls (and boys) need real experience with the real world before they can begin to understand command language. The insertion of speech bubbles with “real code” near pictures of computerized toys (“train.go[ ]”) or tools (“repeat 3: phone.ring[ ]”) is simply clutter on the page and will not help babies who are still puzzling out the physical mechanics of the world understand how these devices work. Encouraging young girls to explore technology is certainly a worthy goal, but a board book marketed under the Girls Who Code umbrella will not do the job.
To become coders, babies need to play with sequences, patterns, language, and logic—but not this book. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-54257-2
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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