Playful and inviting armchair travel for conscientious youngsters.
With shaped pages and a fold-out map, this is a guide to the landmarks of the Big Apple.
Many NYC tourist sights are illustrated, including the expected (the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and Times Square) and the too-rarely depicted (Chinatown and Harlem’s Apollo Theater), often in paired double-page spreads, with the die-cut page on the recto becoming a different vantage point (or inside) of the tourist attraction on the verso. Cleverly, the rectangular windows of the facade of the main building of the New York Public Library become the spines of shelved books when the page is turned and readers enter. Cosneau’s flat, graphic images in muted, cool colors adeptly capture the busy energy of the city, presenting a diverse cast of people with stylized skin tones of warm gray, chalk white, mustard yellow, and salmon pink. Franceschelli peppers the art with a few brief lines that set the scene: “GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL / People rushing. People running. // Where’s my train? Time to GO!” The first spread is a fold-out map that provides a key to the 10 featured landmarks, though it is not scaled for navigation. It is incorrectly labeled as a map of New York City (Staten Island and the Bronx are nowhere in sight, and Brooklyn and Queens are gray spaces on the margins). The companion title, Hello Paris!, takes young readers across the pond with a similar format and illuminates landmarks in the City of Lights, such as the Louvre, Montmartre, and Notre-Dame. With thinner-than-normal board pages sporting die-cuts, fold-out maps, and spines that could easily give way, both titles are best suited to readers already accustomed to books.
Playful and inviting armchair travel for conscientious youngsters. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2829-7
Page Count: 46
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
An excellent starter book for those looking to raise their children in a bilingual environment.
Niñas y niños learn their ABCs en español.
A is for ardilla (squirrel) and E is for erizo (hedgehog) in this pastel-colored board book. Each page features a different animal or object with a large, scratchily drawn uppercase letter in the top-left corner. (All the text appears to be hand-drawn and frequently displays irregular use of upper- and lowercase conventions.) The upper-right corner of the page spotlights the item’s Spanish and English names, with Spanish printed large on top and English in a smaller hand beneath. The illustrations are warm and sweet, presenting rounded, friendly figures colored with pastel hues. Even inanimate objects, such as the wafle (waffle) and the uvas (grapes), are given smiling faces and welcoming body language. There are separate entries for N for “niña/niño” (“girl/boy”) and Ñ for ñu (translated as “wildebeest” rather than “gnu”). It appears that X (xilófono) and Y (yak) are as troublesome for abecederaries in Spanish as in English. After the alphabet is finished, the backmatter provides the pronunciation of each letter for non–Spanish speakers and phonetic spelling for each creature along with the further introduction of the sounds ll, ch, and rr. The book is handsomely bound in faux hardcover style, boasting sturdy pages and smooth textures.
An excellent starter book for those looking to raise their children in a bilingual environment. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63322-283-0
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Walter Foster Jr.
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A swell visual puzzle.
Little readers tour the town.
This pleasant board book is all about the sights and sounds of a small, middle-class town. Little readers thumb through various street scenes, visiting the park, the beach, a train station, and more. Each scene offers a few visual puzzles for little ones. A giant high-heeled shoe blends in with the slides on the playground. An oversized piece of toast sits among the houses on a street. Readers are encouraged to spot what doesn’t belong as well as to count items, spot differences, trace fingers on paths, and more. Humans are absent from the busy photo collages, but a small teddy bear in blue overalls acts as guide, and other animals and birds (and a dinosaur) add further visual interest. A similar title, Building Site, is concurrently published and uses this same concept and visual style to tour a construction site; its guide is a toy figure with light-brown skin wearing a hard hat. Caregivers will find either book an excellent companion for car rides, doctor visits, and shopping trips.
A swell visual puzzle. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4654-5599-4
Page Count: 16
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
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