Perfectly targeted to preschoolers, Chedru’s basic palette and simple shapes invite young children to learn.
Bold pictures and simple language help beginning readers (or wannabe readers) discover the answer to the title question.
The background of each page is a single bright color. After a brief introduction (“This book will teach you how to describe size.…Have fun!”), there are 14 two-page spreads, each following the same pattern: On the left-hand page, a few words of text in answer to the titular question; on the right-hand page, a very simple illustration. “ ‘I am!’ trumpets the elephant to the butterfly.” Indeed, the blue elephant is so big that their trunk spills over onto the left-hand page, while the small yellow butterfly flutters above the elephant’s head. The bear has the same message for the honey pot, as does the leaf to the ant, the cloud to the kite, and the garden to the flower: “I am!” Chedru tucks an additional lesson into her simple concept with the use of various evocative verbs. Thus, the umbrella “sighs” to the raindrop, the fishbowl “gurgles” to the goldfish, and the flower “smiles” to the bee. Other pairings include a tree and a squirrel, a hammer and a nail, and a pan and a grain of rice. The final, winning comparison speaks right to readers. Chedru’s matte, posterlike illustrations are likewise playful, often—but never completely—approaching abstraction in their use of negative space.
Perfectly targeted to preschoolers, Chedru’s basic palette and simple shapes invite young children to learn. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-500-65149-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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