Serviceable.
Whimsical illustrations invite children to learn their first Spanish words.
The book is set out in a simple and clear fashion, each section clearly identified. An introduction tells children “Spanish is the second-most-spoken language in the world” and explains there are regional differences in vocabulary. The “Spanish Basics” section explains the concept of a gendered language and how gender and number must match. There is a cryptic note about “la mano” (the hand) being an exception, with no further explanation. Then comes the real focus of the book, everyday words in a variety of areas: animals, body, food, colors, numbers, school, home, garden, clothing, occupations, family, places, transportation, and weather. Each topic is allotted a double-page spread. The illustrations are whimsical and spare. English is presented in a color matching the general color of the page, followed by the Spanish in black. On occasion, more than one word is given for the Spanish to allow for regional differences. With no pronunciation guide to help children out, it is to be assumed they will need someone who speaks the language to guide them. A better use for the book might be as a picture-dictionary reference tool. The children depicted in the illustrations are paper-white, purple, blue, and green, with no hint of racial or ethnic differences.
Serviceable. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6626-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Prospective younger visitors can do better than this bland mush.
A scan of landmarks, neighborhoods, food, and other attractions in the Big Apple.
Perfunctory efforts to give this tour at least a pretense of geographic or thematic unity only add to its higgledy-piggledy character. Arrhenius (City, 2018, etc.) opens with a full-page view of the Brooklyn Bridge soaring over an otherwise-unidentifiable cityscape opposite a jumble of eight smaller images that are, for all that one is labeled “Brooklyn Academy of Music” and another “Coney Island,” are likewise so stylized as to look generic. From there, in the same one-topic-per-spread format, it’s on to Manhattan uptown and down for “Rockefeller Center,” “Shopping,” and other random bites. The “Harlem” spread features a fire hydrant, a mailbox, and the (actually distant) Cloisters museum, for instance, and a glance into “Queens” offers glimpses of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, a “Greek restaurant,” a “Mexican restaurant,” and “marathon runners.” The large trim size and aesthetic mimic M. Sasek’s perennial This Is New York (1960, revised edition 2003) while adding much-needed updates with both more diverse arrays of dress and skin hues for the stylized human figures as well as the addition of sites such as the Stonewall Inn, the 9/11 memorial, and the Fearless Girl statue.
Prospective younger visitors can do better than this bland mush. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0990-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Brilliant as usual—but best suited for the shelves of personal libraries rather than public ones.
From the Press Here! (2011) panjandrum, a high-energy invitation to break out pens, pencils, and crayons for an instructive rumpus.
A brisk, directed tutorial in following instructions while having a barrel of fun, this workbook opens with a visual flex in the form of a flap of die-cut holes placed interestingly over a diverse set of patterns, then presents a hefty block of 140 drawing pages. These range from totally blank at the outset to busy spreads teeming with dots, circles, or other shapes in primary colors, and each comes with a prompt: to add dots or loops of specified size or in specified places; carefully color inside, or outside, the lines; connect dots of a certain color or particular relationship; turn dots into fruit, cars, fish, faces, and more; or mark everything up in some other way. Along the way motor skills get a workout too, as the interactions tend to progress from simple to less so: “Make these dots the same. / Now make them as different as can be!” Who knew there was so much one could do with red, yellow, and blue dots? Once they start, primary grade Picassos are going to find it hard to stop before the end, and as the pages aren’t erasable, do-overs aren’t in the picture.
Brilliant as usual—but best suited for the shelves of personal libraries rather than public ones. (Novelty. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7860-8
Page Count: 140
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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