Despite the book’s design flaws, this offering featuring an expecting family of color is a welcome new arrival.
A toddler imagines all the different creatures and things that could be growing or hiding in Mummy’s pregnancy bump.
This trousers-wearing tyke with brown skin and short curly brown hair hugs Mummy and, in the gentle if uninspiring rhyming text, asks a string of questions about her belly: “Is it a watermelon? That would be funny! / Or is it a little jumping bunny!” The tot goes on to wonder with fanciful logic if the bump could be an odd assortment of things of wildly different shapes and sizes, including an elephant, some new toys, a lion, and a mouse. In the end, the youngster realizes that it must be a baby sister and a new playmate. Here the preschooler is joined by a pink-clad toddler girl with matching coloring and straight, brown hair. The art, consisting of highly stylized cartoons adorned with swaths of colors and occasional patterned designs, appears strangely cropped, as if the original, Chilean edition were a different trim size than this 6 ½-inch-square book. Key figures often appear at the edges of the pages, and readers never see the mother in toto.
Despite the book’s design flaws, this offering featuring an expecting family of color is a welcome new arrival. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: March 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-78285-976-5
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
When there are so many titles available that provide counting practice without sacrificing engaging text and illustrations,...
An interactive counting book featuring five playful snowmen.
A long rectangular shape is cut through the book so that readers can see and manipulate, from every double-page spread, five numbered snowmen who slide from one side of the row to the other for counting practice. Text in a fairly small font offers a perfunctory story about a robin helping a snowman to find a friend, after which three more snowmen join them in winter play. Boldface text beneath the rectangular window lets children know when they should move another snowman from left to right as they count to five; they can then move them all back to the left again to start the game anew. The serviceable story and illustrations both seem to have been crafted in support of the “slide and count” element of the text. Unfortunately, this idea falls flat in execution because when the book is tilted in any direction, the snowmen slide back and forth willy-nilly, disrupting the counting process. Companion title Five Christmas Reindeer is very similar, inviting children to count the reindeer as they prepare to help Santa deliver presents.
When there are so many titles available that provide counting practice without sacrificing engaging text and illustrations, this simply doesn’t make the cut. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0170-5
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
As realism is not the object here, these lions are cute, cuddly and toothless, safe for sharing a crib with baby.
A day-in-the-life tale of a lion cub and his mother.
From morning until night, the little wild cat enjoys pouncing, playing, exploring and preening while his momma looks on and offers a helping paw when needed. The youngster encounters a fellow cub and a couple of meerkats before hunkering down with momma for the night. Each double-page spread (on thinner-than-normal board-book stock) provides a different view of the grassland setting in both bright and muted earth tones. Kightley’s paintings, which have the look of acrylic on canvas, are deft at capturing the sunny yellow cub and his playmate in motion. This is a kinder and gentler savanna. While the little feline appears to stalk a bird under his mother’s guidance, this feathered friend does not become a meal on subsequent pages. In gentle rhyming couplets meted out in one or two couplets per page, the first-person-narrator cub describes the action: “We run free. / So much to see. / Grasses sway. / I lead the way.”
As realism is not the object here, these lions are cute, cuddly and toothless, safe for sharing a crib with baby. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-53091-0
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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