by Belinda Downes & illustrated by Belinda Downes ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
As a quilt warms a newborn, so this quilt of rhymes warms the new relationship between parent and child. Childhood rhymes alternate with questions that will spark an interaction between baby and parent, prompting them to point out and name objects in the scene or imitate the action in the text. Rhymes include such favorites as, “Star light, star bright,” “Head, shoulders, knees and toes,” “Charlie, Charlie in the tub,” “Five little monkeys” and “Rock-a-bye baby.” Combining the looks of a sampler and a quilt, Downes’s remarkably detailed artwork is a mixture of embroidery, appliqué and watercolor. Where the rhymes in the text stop, the illustrations continue to teach, picturing and labeling the food groups, types of homes, emotions, family members, clothing and bathtime paraphernalia. A wide variety of skin tones and situations ensure that every audience will find the familiar. An envelope glued to the inside back cover can hold special mementos from the first year, while a bookplate at the beginning makes it baby’s own. A cute gift for a baby shower. (Picture book. 1-3)
Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7636-2786-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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by Belinda Downes & illustrated by Belinda Downes
by Jeffrey Burton ; illustrated by Sanja Rešček ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 5, 2016
Leave the hopping to Peter Cottontail and sing the original song instead.
An Easter-themed board-book parody of the traditional nursery rhyme.
Unfortunately, this effort is just as sugary and uninspired as The Itsy Bitsy Snowman, offered by the same pair in 2015. A cheerful white bunny hops through a pastel world to distribute candy and treats for Easter but spills his baskets. A hedgehog, fox, mouse, and various birds come to the bunny’s rescue, retrieving the candy, helping to devise a distribution plan, and hiding the eggs. Then magically, they all fly off in a hot air balloon as the little animals in the village emerge to find the treats. Without any apparent purpose, the type changes color to highlight some words. For very young children every word is new, so highlighting “tiny tail” or “friends” makes no sense. Although the text is meant to be sung, the words don't quite fit the rhythm of the original song. Moreover, there are not clear motions to accompany the text; without the fingerplay movements, this book has none of the satisfying verve of the traditional version.
Leave the hopping to Peter Cottontail and sing the original song instead. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-5621-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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by Jeffrey Burton ; illustrated by Juliana Motzko
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by Jeffrey Burton ; illustrated by Alison Brown
BOOK REVIEW
by Jeffrey Burton ; illustrated by Sanja Rešček
by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 5, 2016
An acceptable and sturdy addition to the Easter basket for baby bunnies deemed too young to handle Dorothy Kunhardt's more...
Following on the successful Five Little Pumpkins (2003), Yaccarino teams with Rabe for bunnies.
The five pastel bunnies are cute enough, and the rhymes are accurate, if somewhat wordy for toddlers. But without a clear one-to-one relationship between the words and the pictures, it is not always clear which bunny is speaking and what is being counted. The bunnies, identified as first, second, and so on, hop around the pages instead of staying in a consistent order as the rhyme implies. Naming them by color might have been a better choice, but that would mean abandoning the finger-play counting-rhyme formula. The children who show up to hunt the eggs are a multicultural cast of cartoonish figures with those in the background drawn as blue and green silhouettes. Though the text on the back cover invites children to count the eggs, there is no hint as to how many eggs they should find. Neither the verse nor the pictures provide counting assistance. The youngest children will not care about any of this; they will be content to point out the different colors of the bunnies and the patterns on the eggs.
An acceptable and sturdy addition to the Easter basket for baby bunnies deemed too young to handle Dorothy Kunhardt's more satisfying but fragile classic, Pat the Bunny. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-225339-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HarperFestival
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes
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