Sheer joy.
This book and its companions explore the joys of performance art, toddler style.
Featuring a multiethnic group of toddlers as well as some toddlers wearing glasses and one who uses a wheelchair, the book celebrates the sheer exhilaration of imagination during toddlerhood. The colorful mixed-media illustrations place the children against a white background, giving them center stage. The accompanying text exudes the same playfulness and vitality as the drawings, begging to be read aloud and always ending with an enthusiastic “I’m amazing!” Performing on all kinds of improvised instruments from pots to bottles filled with rattly things, the children have a blast: “I’ve got a drum, as round as my tum. / BANG! BA-da-BOOM! BA-da-BOOM, Bang…BUM!” In companion title Dance! “Hands go CLAP! / Feet go TAP!” Young readers will be moved to do the same. In Dressing Up! the children explore a box filled with wondrous objects ready to become anything a toddler can imagine, the onomatopoeic text giving clues to their creations. And proving that singing can be done anywhere, in Sing! children sing while swinging, sitting on the potty, or splashing in the bathtub. “Sing loud, out LOUD! / Sing LOUDER! / I’m amazing!” Pair these with Annie Kubler’s Nursery Time board books.
Sheer joy. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-84643-961-2
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Child's Play
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
This will have readers putting on their dancing shoes to do the “cha cha cha” with their dino-babies
It's not the first time dinosaurs have been featured in a clever Boynton board book. It seems she—and we—can't get enough.
As her fans know, Boynton has a sly wit that respects the intelligence of her young fans and amuses the adults asked to “read it again.” In this book she introduces nine dinosaurs, each of which dances in a way that seems totally appropriate for that particular species. “The blue Stegosaurus goes SHIMMY SHIMMY SHAKE. / The red Brontosaurus goes QUIVERY QUAKE.” Drawing on her experience as a children’s musician, she writes a text that trips along like a song with rhymes that make sense but don't intrude. The illustrations, typical Boynton, reflect her greeting-card background. They are cartoonish but manage to capture the unique personality of each creature. The unnamed dinosaur narrator looks genuinely distraught at not being able to name the “tiny little dino” that “goes DEEDLY DEE.” Spoiler alert: the tiny little dinosaur is probably Compsognathus and would be about the size of a small chicken. Young dinophiles would be impressed if the dinosaurologists in their lives could supply that factoid, but alas, they will have to look it up.
This will have readers putting on their dancing shoes to do the “cha cha cha” with their dino-babies . (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8099-4
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Take it, or leave it.
A wintertime story that can be sung to the tune of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
The itsy bitsy snowman and his friends are playing in the snow. They climb up a snowy hill, jump on a sled, slide fast, and zip past children skating on ice. Then, though the text tells readers that he “dodged a snowball fight,” his head becomes separated from his body. Not to worry, “out came his friends / to lend a happy hand.” In the last spread the itsy bitsy snowman stands with his mom, dad, and friends, “And everything was perfect / in his winter wonderland.” The story, intended to be read to the tune of the beloved nursery rhyme, doesn’t always quite fit the template, as in: “The itsy bitsy snowman / climbed up the snowy hill. // He jumped on a sled / and slid fast…what a thrill!” For no obvious reason, on every page one word is printed in a different color from the rest of the text. Rescek’s illustrations are bright, cheery, and cartoonlike, with an appropriate wintry pale blue as the dominant color. Though sweet and cute, there is nothing particularly fresh or new here.
Take it, or leave it. (Board book. 1-2)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4837-6
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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