Creative—but doesn’t quite nail it.
Put on your hard hat and get ready to build by moving construction-themed puzzle pieces about the page in this French import.
In a conversational narration, a pair of builders with black hair and tangerine skin congenially chat with each other and readers as they detail the many stages involved in building a home. After detailing how the duo erects the house, it warmly concludes with a new project: a baby so they might now “build [their] family.” As there’s a fair amount of text, studded with rich vocabulary like balcony and joists, it’s most suitable for older toddler and preschool listeners. Deneux’s signature style shines, with abundant white space and graphically simple renderings of people and equipment made primarily of bold, unlined geometric shapes in a cohesive palette of olive, crimson, goldenrod, and black. Where the book stumbles is in its interactivity. Conceptually, moving the pieces from a recessed area on the left page to a recess on the right to help the duo complete a building task is ingenious, as a square and rectangle become bricks or a triangle roof is added, but in practice, this requires some serious manual dexterity. Pieces designed to fit tight require prying to remove, and sometimes, placing the correct pieces into the slot is tricky. Caregivers will bemoan the many tiny parts as they disappear into bottomless toy boxes.
Creative—but doesn’t quite nail it. (Board book/novelty. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7871-4
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
Delightful and engaging.
Preschoolers can follow a little brown mouse on its traveling adventures in this engaging color concept book.
As the book starts, a little mouse can be seen packing up her equally itty-bitty suitcase. Rhyming text with a wonderful read-aloud rhythm introduces readers to the little mouse’s street: “Red house / Blue house / Green house / Tree house! / See the tiny mouse / in her little brown house?” Clean-lined, colorful illustrations in Gómez’s signature style lead readers along: into a flower-filled garden; on a ride on a red city bus; in a potted windowsill plant attended by a child; on the curb where a group of people wait to cross a street; in an underwater scene with “one gigantic whale!”; and on a jolly ride that employs a string of vehicles. The little mouse is not mentioned again, making it easy for readers to forget it as they get caught up in the myriad delightful details of each illustration. No problem there. The book ends with “and did you spot that mouse?” This should send children back to the beginning, this time in earnest search of the little mouse and her itty-bitty suitcase. Should children need further enticement to read the book again, travel patches on the endpapers invite readers to match them to the relevant part in the story. The people depicted are diverse both racially as well as in physical ability.
Delightful and engaging. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55381-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
A worthwhile message that just doesn't quite fly.
A sadly lackluster paean to the premise that “no two snowflakes are alike, / almost, almost… / but not quite.”
Beginning with snowflakes, Baker then branches out to celebrate the uniqueness of other things, some found in nature, some manmade—nests, branches, leaves and forests. “No two fences, long and low, / no two roads—where do they go? / No two bridges, wood or stone, / no two houses— / anyone home?” His ultimate message, arrived at on almost the final page, is that every living thing is one of a kind. While it is certainly an important message, the very young may not make the leap from the animals and things that populate the book to humans, which make no appearance. Baker’s digital illustrations fill the spreads with simple shapes and soft, woodsy colors. The two red birds (rather like crestless cardinals) that fly through this wintry wonderland steal the show. Their expressions are adorable, their antics endearing and rather anthropomorphic—one skis, while the other tries to pelt a fox with snowballs. But they may not be enough to carry the flat text and lack of a story line. Indeed, the book depends on the rhymes and the cute birds to keep the pages turning.
A worthwhile message that just doesn't quite fly. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4424-1742-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
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