by Bob Barner ; illustrated by Bob Barner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 15, 2020
Snap this one up.
Novelty pull-tabs combined with fascinating animal-tongue facts.
Face it: Tongues are weirdly enthralling to toddlers and preschoolers, who are going to be even more intrigued after experiencing this lively board book. Inside, readers get up and close and personal with five different animal faces. Pull the tab from their mouths, and a tongue emerges, from an insect-covered anteater’s to an unexpectedly blue, leaf-coated giraffe tongue. Once the tongue’s out, let go—and snap!—it recedes with a satisfying noise, as though the animal is hungrily devouring its meal. Because the elastic that enables this special effect seems both well attached and robust, the snapping feature should attract and withstand plenty of action. The accompanying tongue facts are genuinely cool. Who knew that a blue whale’s tongue “weighs as much as an elephant” or that the chameleon’s “tongue is hollow”? Sitting against mostly white backgrounds, the page-dominating animal collages feel as energetic as their springing tongues. Brilliantly colored papers are cut, ripped, layered, and painted, making the critters feel three-dimensional. The few strategic background elements, such as a diminutive scuba diver alongside the blue whale or the paper wasp’s nest (incorrectly identified as a beehive) behind a sun bear present the animal’s scale. If the book has a downside, it’s that there’s not enough of it.
Snap this one up. (Novelty board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7941-4
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
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by Bob Barner ; illustrated by Bob Barner
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by Madeleine Rogers ; illustrated by Madeleine Rogers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2017
Despite the occasionally ambiguous text, a good, strikingly illustrated conversation starter about animals, their habitats,...
Come for a safari and explore five common animals of Africa’s savanna: lion, giraffe, elephant, hippopotamus, and zebra.
Each animal is featured on two double-page spreads in this informational board book, and the rhyming text, mostly one sentence per page, gives toddler-appropriate facts about that animal, though they are occasionally a little ambiguous. “Elephants are really smart, / with a super sense of smell. // They like to care for relatives / when they’re not feeling well.” The first page gives an introduction to the characteristics of the habitat, but the word “savanna” is not included in the book, and the only mention of Africa, where these animals live, is on the last page. The last page has one fun fact about each animal (“Each zebra’s stripes are slightly different, just like our fingerprints,” although all five zebras on another page look dramatically similarly striped) and a brief environmental plea to work together to help preserve habitat. Illustrations are colorful, bold, and geometric and really carry the book. The only child in the book is a brown-skinned, dark-haired child standing with the giraffe. The other two books in the series are similar. The Jungle Crew is set in the rainforest (that word appearing only on the last page); The Polar Pack includes both North and South Polar regions, and apart from the polar bear, does not specify in which polar region the penguin, walrus, reindeer, and snowy owl are found.
Despite the occasionally ambiguous text, a good, strikingly illustrated conversation starter about animals, their habitats, and our part in protecting these environments. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-908985-83-5
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Button Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
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by Jason Hook ; illustrated by Madeleine Rogers
written and illustrated by Bastien Contraire ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 22, 2017
Handsome but so sneaky as to be frustrating.
Youngsters are invited to find the object or creature that doesn’t fit in with a similar grouping of animals.
In arrays spread out on (mostly) double-page spreads, a rocking horse hides among a drove of real horses, a cat sits with a variety of breeds of dogs, and so on. The project is wordless except for the introductory text that introduces the game with echoes of Sesame Street: “One of these things is almost like the others….” Some of the groupings are quite clever: a straight belt is placed amid a row of curvy snakes, a mechanical crane is perched between a living crane and two other long-legged birds, and the sole human figure, who looks to be a shirtless white male, is the only being to walk on two legs in a primate troop. To assist guessers, the final double-page spread shows all the outliers from the subsequent groupings. Using only yellow, purple, and a deep and dusky brown that is created when these two shades are mixed, Contraire uses stencils to create his figures against a creamy white background. While many of the animals and objects are instantly recognizable, the contrast of the mostly yellow critters against white backgrounds makes identification tricky for the board-book set. And while the book design is handsome, the lack of color variation in the art gives the offering a one-note feel.
Handsome but so sneaky as to be frustrating. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: May 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7148-7422-7
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Phaidon
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
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by Bastien Contraire ; illustrated by Bastien Contraire
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