Tries to do too much and doesn’t quite succeed.
With the help of farm-animal friends, three little chicks bake their mother a cake and save it from ruin.
In this tactile board book, baby chickens Penny, Polly, and Molly are determined to show their love for Mama by baking her a cake. Other baby farm animals get in on the action, helping haul supplies and decorate the cake. When the enormous cake nearly topples, the chicks come up with a way to keep it intact, demonstrating to Mama both their love and their quick thinking. What’s unclear from the story is what makes these three chicks the titular “tough.” They’re certainly quick, innovative, and persistent, but beyond the cutesy play on words, it doesn’t mean much. The book includes various touch-and-feel elements: a fluffy foal’s tail and a fun-to-touch sticky spot of cake frosting. There are, however, unnecessary tabs on the right-hand side of the book. A little mouse appears before each page turn with reader-participation questions. “Can you moooo like a calf?” it asks. These mostly work, but they’re not needed. Suber’s illustrations are sweet, the animals cartoonish. They help explain and move the story along, particularly showing how the cake is saved at the end. Mostly there is just too much: tabs, flaps, participatory directions, touch-and-feel elements. Less would have been more.
Tries to do too much and doesn’t quite succeed. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-358-12653-9
Page Count: 12
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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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