CLIP, CLOP

A series of farm animals strut, wander, ramble, trot, and scamper across the pages of this simple board book.

“The rooster struts, / Scratch, scratch. // The cow wanders, / Thump, thump.” On recto, high-contrast black-on-white or white-on-black images depict the animals (pig, horse, and sheep round out the list). On verso, a brief statement about its locomotion appears along with the sound it makes in doing so,  printed in clear type on a boldly colored field. Both the verbs used and sounds attributed may give some adult readers pause. While no one will be surprised to learn that the trotting horse makes the titular “clip, clop,” how do the sounds “trik, trak” represent the “rambling” of a pig, for instance, or “trip, trop” the “scampering” of a sheep? These quibbles aside, this book is a nice change from the customary focus on animal vocalizations, and the phonetic crunchiness of the noises gives young ears good practice in distinguishing the different sounds that make up words. Companion title Wibble, Wobble takes the conceit to the ocean to introduce a seal, a crab, a penguin, a gull, and a whale. “Penguin” is misspelled “penquin,” but adult readers will likely blow right past that.

A pleasant-enough variation on the perennially popular animal-noise genre.