A welcome board-book addition, even if it leaves readers hungry for a bit more.
Eat your way through the alphabet and learn about 26 varieties of that most kid-friendly of foods—noodles!
Celebrating the versatility, popularity, and ubiquity of noodles, this board book gives hungry readers a delicious tour of pasta dishes from a variety of cultures and countries. There is a dish for each letter of the alphabet. Some of these tasty entrees include “sauteed shellfish and short-noodle” Fideuà from Spain; “steamy, salty” Ramen from Japan; and “sweet milk custard” Vermicelli Kheer from India. Some young foodies might devour every morsel of the meticulous descriptions of the different dishes. Others may tire out before they reach “Zaru soba,” i.e. “chilled soba and shredded nori,” which diners are instructed to dip “from a bamboo basket into a cup of mentsuyu sauce before each bite.” Sixteen of the noodle names are written in both Anglicized form and other languages. The artwork nicely shows the dishes’ garnishes, but the flat digital renditions lack a certain appetizing spark. For instance, Tallarines Verdes (Peruvian Pesto) is described as “bright green pesto,” but the picture of the dish feels dull and lacks the glossy, oily shimmer that makes pesto look so yummy on a plate. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A welcome board-book addition, even if it leaves readers hungry for a bit more. (pronunciation guide) (Informational board book. 2-8)Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-951412-36-4
Page Count: 28
Publisher: The Collective Book Studio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color.
Duncan wants to draw, but instead of crayons, he finds a stack of letters listing the crayons’ demands in this humorous tale.
Red is overworked, laboring even on holidays. Gray is exhausted from coloring expansive spaces (elephants, rhinos and whales). Black wants to be considered a color-in color, and Peach? He’s naked without his wrapper! This anthropomorphized lot amicably requests workplace changes in hand-lettered writing, explaining their work stoppage to a surprised Duncan. Some are tired, others underutilized, while a few want official titles. With a little creativity and a lot of color, Duncan saves the day. Jeffers delivers energetic and playful illustrations, done in pencil, paint and crayon. The drawings are loose and lively, and with few lines, he makes his characters effectively emote. Clever spreads, such as Duncan’s “white cat in the snow” perfectly capture the crayons’ conundrum, and photographic representations of both the letters and coloring pages offer another layer of texture, lending to the tale’s overall believability.
A comical, fresh look at crayons and color. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-25537-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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