Eclectic and effective—this board book is the cat’s meow.
As a bevy of colored cats arrive one by one, small die-cut windows burst into color.
In this Catalonian import, a simply outlined white house waits for a prismatic collection of feline friends to return home. On the verso, readers meet and glimpse the cat that’s heading indoors; with a page turn, that cat disappears and another brightly colored die-cut window illuminates, letting readers know that kitty has made it safely inside. Using a soothing conversational tone that’s ideal for bedtime reading, the omniscient narrator cozily describes the domestic scene that awaits each cat—Little Brown Cat, for instance, returns “to a big warm bed in the big white house!”—before bidding each goodnight. It all culminates in a snuggly final page showing the kitties all bedded down. Each cat is introduced with a colored typeset, helping children predict what color window will appear next, and the cat’s names vary, with both basic monikers like Little Pink Cat and those with pizzazz, like Little Lime-Green Cat, allowing the text to be predictable without feeling formulaic. Ironically, the roughly silhouetted cats are the weakest part of the book, and the rainbow colors are somewhat muddied, though they’re still striking in the windows. Made of durable cardboard, the die-cut pages are sturdy and will hold up to enthusiastic fingers.
Eclectic and effective—this board book is the cat’s meow. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4521-8213-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
A comforting celebration of everyday courage with lots of charm to boot.
This upbeat ode to conquering fears will resonate with tots both timid and not.
The sparse text of this sturdy board book is a series of three quatrains, presented one brief line per spread, describing the various fears a little boy has overcome: “I was scared of big dogs. / Then I made a new friend. // I was scared of the water. / Now I love the deep end.” Having also conquered fears of the dark, loud horns and goodbyes, he proclaims on the final pages: “I’m not scared like before. / I am so brave!” The skillful verses read smoothly and depict situations that toddlers and preschoolers will relate to. The illustrations center around a wide-eyed African-American child as the main character, with Caucasian children also populating some of the scenes, including the final spread, which features the narrator leaping boldly into a pit of colored balls. The design and color scheme, mostly bright blues, yellows and reds, give the title a distinctly vintage feel, which will lend it appeal to both adults and children.
A comforting celebration of everyday courage with lots of charm to boot. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0937-1
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
This multiethnic title is not memorable enough to become a bedtime favorite.
This third title in the New Books for Newborns series features multiethnic dads getting their infants ready for bed.
Each double-page spread shows a different child with their male parent engaged in bedtime rituals. Four lines of rhyming text, each time starting with the same first line, point out nighttime objects. “Hush a bye, my baby. / Can you hear the owl call? / Time to close your eyes gently / as night starts to fall.” The text is for the most part simple and uses familiar vocabulary, but sometimes scansion falters. Although the hair and skin colors in this book range from pale to rich brown, most of the dad-and-child pairs seem to be racially similar, and no distinctly biracial child is depicted. Illustrations in a soothing pastel palette show a fair-skinned, red-haired dad carrying a tired, fair-skinned, brown-haired baby up the stairs; a dad with brown skin and brown hair holds a similar-looking baby wrapped in a towel; and a dad and child with dark hair and dark skin rock together in a chair, reading a book. Most of the dads are shown to be affectionate but not interactive with their infants. This series is meant for newborns, but the fine-lined, busy, and sometimes conceptually abstract illustrations may be more suitable for toddlers or even young preschoolers.
This multiethnic title is not memorable enough to become a bedtime favorite. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5344-0139-6
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
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