Stick with Dig In!, which young readers will enjoy sinking their teeth into.
Mice, with construction-worker garb and gear, build and enjoy a full-size pizza.
Fluid and often clever verse narrates the action: “Crew arrives at break of day. Get to work, right away! / Put on those construction hats. Roll that mountain nice and flat.” (The mountain here is a mound of pizza dough.) Each double-page spread, except for the first, features movable parts, allowing readers to manipulate the machinery. A spin dial turns the roller of the steamroller or the barrel of a cement mixer (from which issues tomato sauce). Each sliding panel has a hole or indentation for little fingers’ ease of use and moves a loader, makes the ’dozer spread cheese, tows the pizza from the oven and removes a slice from the pie. The interactive components, while relatively easy to manipulate, are constructed of thinner-than-normal board-book page stock and may not hold up under really enthusiastic reading. In gray, orange and yellow hues and drawn in her flat, graphic cartoon-style, Berg’s friendly mice and clear depictions of vehicles are pleasing and recognizable. Little ones may not totally get the mashup of construction and pizza making, but there are enough details here to hold the interest of most truck lovers. The less successful sister title, Dive In!, follows a similar format, but here the mouse workers fill a bathtub and launch toy boats. Unfortunately, the interactive features are less satisfying and more baffling (will toddlers understand what a bath thermometer is?).
Stick with Dig In!, which young readers will enjoy sinking their teeth into. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0522-9
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
A perfect piece of treasure it is not, but shiver me timbers, it’s fun.
Two pirates and their parrot companion embark on adventures to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
Following Car, Car, Truck, Jeep (2018), Charman and Sharratt team up again for this swashbuckling, musical tale. The two buccaneers and their parrot spend a day at sea engaged in such maritime activities as scrubbing the deck and hoisting the sail along with quintessentially piratical chores like digging up buried treasure. At the end of the day—which culminates in a nonviolent walk across the plank—the two pirates return home. Charman’s rhyming text has a nice cadence, and thanks to the cover note to sing along to the tune of “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat,” it moves along at a nice clip. For the most part, the rhymes work neatly into the tune so that it reads easily the first time through. Sharratt’s black-outlined illustrations are boldly colored and eye-catching. The pirates themselves are not obviously gendered; one presents white and the other has light-brown skin. Most of the ocean creatures have anthropomorphized features—a mostly successful choice with the exception of the jellyfish and octopus, shown awkwardly with humanlike noses and smiles (and, oddly, eyebrows for the octopus). Overall, this one holds high appeal for little readers, and the nature of the singsong-y, rhyming text will make it a highly requested reread.
A perfect piece of treasure it is not, but shiver me timbers, it’s fun. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0319-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Short, sweet, and engaging; a sing-along introduction to furry first responders.
“The Wheels on the Bus” gets an extra syllable, a siren, a hose, and a snazzy new ladder.
This variation on the popular children’s song should hit the spot with budding truck aficionados among the diapered set. The text is a straight adaptation of “The Wheels on the Bus,” with firetruck and firefighting themes replacing the sights and sounds of a bus rider’s commute. The siren goes “Woo-woo-woo,” the lights go “Flash, flash, flash,” the riders “hold on tight,” the ladder goes “up, up, up,” and the hose, of course, goes “swish-swish-swish—now, the fire’s out.” The book won’t win awards for originality, but it should be a toddler pleaser. The colors on the cover are an explosion of reflective red foil against a bright yellow background; the interior colors are more muted but still bright and cheery. The firefighters and onlookers are anthropomorphic animals in firefighter costume or civvies, as the case may be. Characters include a racoon, some bunnies, a fox, and a woodchuck, among others, all rendered in an accessible, cartoony style. Between the bright colors and the smiling gameness of the furry firefighters, the proceedings should excite and delight most tots.
Short, sweet, and engaging; a sing-along introduction to furry first responders. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4244-3
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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