With only five double-page spreads, the book may feel on the pricey side, but little fingers will enjoy opening these...
Matt the Cat searches for a little gray mouse in five locations on the farm in this lift-the-flap offering with an embedded sound chip.
Matt looks for breakfast in the stable, pigsty, duck pond, and cowshed with no success. In each of these encounters, Matt poses the query “Have you seen a little gray mouse?” via speech bubble. Readers can lift up the flap in each double-page scene to reveal a horse, piglets, a duck with four ducklings, and a cow with calf respectively. On the final two-page spread, Matt finds the mouse in the henhouse cooking his breakfast and not, to everyone’s relief, becoming breakfast. When each flap and the sliding panel on the cover are opened, light-activated sensors trigger the sound chip enclosed in the back cover, and each animal makes it signature sound. The back page, which includes a small compartment to replace the battery, encourages readers to use the book in good light or the sound chip won’t activate. In true DK fashion, clear photos of each featured animal encourage recognition. All the backgrounds, along with Matt, the mouse, and a few farm accessories, are drawn in simple and bright two-dimensional cartoons.
With only five double-page spreads, the book may feel on the pricey side, but little fingers will enjoy opening these playfully noisy flaps as long as the battery holds out—or as long as their caregivers can take it. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4654-6313-5
Page Count: 12
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver.
The farmyard's chickens experience Halloween.
A round, full moon shines in the sky, and the chickens of Boynton's barnyard are feeling “nervous.” Pumpkins shine “with flickering eyes,” witches and wizards wander the pastures, and one chicken has seen “a mouse of enormous size.” It’s Halloween night, and readers will delight as the chickens huddle together and try to figure out what's going on. All ends well, of course, and in Boynton's trademark silly style. (It’s really quite remarkable how her ranks of white, yellow-beaked chickens evoke rows of candy corn.) At this point parents and children know what they're in for when they pick up a book by the prolific author, and she doesn't disappoint here. The chickens are silly, the pigs are cute, and the coloring and illustrations evoke a warmth that little ones wary of Halloween will appreciate. For children leery of the ghouls and goblins lurking in the holiday's iconography, this is a perfect antidote, emphasizing all the fun Halloween has to offer.
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7611-9300-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to.
This simplified version of Diesen and Hanna’s The Pout-Pout Fish (2008) is appropriate for babies and toddlers.
Brief, rhyming text tells the story of a sullen fish cheered up with a kiss. A little pink sea creature pokes his head out of a hole in the sea bottom to give the gloomy fish some advice: “Smile, Mr. Fish! / You look so down // With your glum-glum face / And your pout-pout frown.” He explains that there’s no reason to be worried, scared, sad or mad and concludes: “How about a smooch? / And a cheer-up wish? // Now you look happy: / What a smile, Mr. Fish!” Simple and sweet, this tale offers the lesson that sometimes, all that’s needed for a turnaround in mood is some cheer and encouragement to change our perspective. The clean, uncluttered illustrations are kept simple, except for the pout-pout fish’s features, which are delightfully expressive. Little ones will easily recognize and likely try to copy the sad, scared and angry looks that cross the fish’s face.
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-374-37084-8
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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