This book will have babies and toddlers spinning the pages again and again.
A genuinely clever new twist on standard board-book topics.
Extra-thick die-cut shapes set on thin spindles turn at the center of each page to make a counting and matching game. The first spin is fairly straightforward—a ladybug with just one spot turns to reveal the same ladybug with two spots. The challenge is to have the spots aligned correctly with the numeral and spelled-out number. Young children will just want to spin the image. Thoughtful adults will be needed to point out the variations in each side of the image. What is counted on subsequent pages is more obscure: zigzags on a fish, stars on a starfish, splashes on a pig, stripes on a tiger. Bright colors, cheerful, smiling animal characters, and that spin will make this twisty title a favorite of active babies and toddlers. The companion volume, Shapes, is equally sophisticated, starting with diamond and including circle and semicircle, square and rectangle, oval and crescent, star and pentagon. Too often a clever concept means a steep price, but that is not the case here; the book is no more expensive than many far less enticing board books. The extra-thick pages needed to accommodate the spindles make the book rather heavy for the youngest children to manipulate, but its sturdy construction is ample compensation.
This book will have babies and toddlers spinning the pages again and again. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7641-6809-3
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A fun spotlight on a warm-weather treat.
An ice cream truck makes the neighborhood rounds.
Shaped like a truck, this board book shows the pastel-pink vehicle touring various spots—the school, the library, the pool, and the park—before retiring for the night. The rhyming text keeps pages turning and lends itself to a lap-sit read-aloud. Words like mosey and cruise are fresh synonyms for the more obvious go and drive. Surprisingly, there is only a brief mention of the truck’s iconic tune (“You’ll hear me at the park”). The anthropomorphic truck has a warm, welcoming face but no driver. This means there are odd floating ice cream scoops, and children seem to magically receive treats. The thickly outlined, colorful, appealing illustrations are similar to those in other board books. Little ones will enjoy looking for fun details on the various spreads, such as flowers, houses, and animals. The children are diverse in terms of skin tone and hair color, and they and the truck are smiling in nearly every scene. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A fun spotlight on a warm-weather treat. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 9781665932981
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
A sweet but standard-issue Christmas read.
Little ones are taught their ABCs with Christmas iconography.
A CAT nibbles on a candy cane, and FOXES sing holiday carols, while LANTERNS glow and ORNAMENTS sparkle on festive trees. Christmas is in the air, and so are the letters of the alphabet. Each letter gets a corresponding Christmas illustration, charmingly colored and cozily composed. The easily read text beneath each picture forms rhyming couplets (“GEESE with gumdrops stacked up tall. / HOME is where we deck the halls”), with the key word set in all caps. The imagery mixes spiritual and secular icons side by side: there are baby JESUS, SANTA, the “Three kind KINGS,” and (a little mystifyingly) “UNICORNS donning underwear.” The warm color palette draws little readers in, and the illustrations have a gingerbread-cookie aesthetic, though there is no real attempt to include Christmas traditions such as luminaria from nondominant cultures. The picture that groups a stereotypical Eskimo, an igloo, and some penguins will madden many readers on both cultural and geographical fronts.
A sweet but standard-issue Christmas read. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7624-6125-7
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
