Far too busy but will likely entertain most toddlers anyway.
This tabbed, touch-and-feel board book is loaded with features.
There is plenty for tots to touch, from the titular tough chicks’ “feathers,” which resemble shag carpeting more than avian plumage, to sheep’s wool, cowhide, and a mire of sticky mud. Each sturdy page is tabbed, with a picture on each tab of a character who appears in the indexed scene. Every scene is a two-page spread; the final tableau also has a third, fold-out panel. As the illustrations occupy two pages, it is often difficult to know if the book’s text is meant to be read across both pages or down one page, then the other. A little mouse in each scene challenges children to act out deeds of the tough chicks, disrupting the narrative flow. Unfortunately, the challenges don’t involve anything like derring-do, nor are they ironically sedate; instead, they seem unrelated to toughness altogether, missing the mark. “Are you tough enough to flap your wings like Polly?” “Are you tough enough to Cockadoodledooooo like the rooster?” The illustrations do convey action; pictures of one chick breaking out wildly oversized binoculars or another using a tractor to yank a comically large cow from a mud puddle are dynamic, funny, and best suggest toughness in the pint-sized protagonists.
Far too busy but will likely entertain most toddlers anyway. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-45057-9
Page Count: 12
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.
You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!
What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?
Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: March 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0534-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...
A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.
As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.
Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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