Brightened by sunny, simply drawn cartoons featuring people of several ages and skin shades, this introduction to the reproductive organs is designed as much to allay parental anxiety as to provide answers to younger children’s questions. Saltz, a practicing psychiatrist, describes the male and female set-ups in a light, relaxed tone, suggesting that it’s better to use specific terms rather than euphemisms for visible organs, and tracking physical changes from infancy to adulthood. She steers clear of topics deemed beyond her child audience’s understanding, such as sexual intercourse, or stages of fetal development, and backs up vague allusions to masturbation and privacy boundaries with a closing note in much smaller type. Though urethras are repeatedly mentioned but never illustrated, there are no lists of further information sources, and a description of sperm as looking “sort of like tadpoles” may leave some misapprehensions about their size, this makes an adequate discussion starter for parents with children not yet up to the level of detail in Robie H. Harris’s It’s So Amazing! (1999). (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-525-47389-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
Pint-sized sleuths use written and visual clues to discover the identities of their quarry in this diverting and ingenious approach to the standard lift-the-flap format. Each spread features a riddle, written in multicolored block letters, superimposed over the image of the animal in question, revealing only a tantalizing glimpse of the creature’s front and hind quarters. Additional clues are provided by the particular sound associated with the animal—perhaps a quack, an oink, or a hiss. A turn of the half page in the center of the spread reveals the full animal and its name overhead. Leslie’s riddles offer concrete clues while remaining silly enough to tickle preschoolers’ fancies: “Who has a snuffly pink snout and a curly whirly tail?” Vivid backgrounds, generous use of colors, and amiable creatures contribute to this gleeful tour of the animal kingdom. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-46182-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
From Belgium, a kooky take on parenthood. As was the case with the old woman who lived in a shoe, a father has ten children and hardly knows what to do. Ten children mean ten of everything: ten breakfasts, ten pairs of underpants, ten t-shirts, ten jeans, not to mention twenty little socks and shoes. Every night he stays up late building a secret boat to sail around the world “all by himself . . . for ten days, or maybe even ten months.” After one day and night alone, he prepares his first solitary breakfast, automatically setting out ten cups, which makes him miss his children terribly. Soon after, father and his ten little mateys merrily set sail around the world. Large white backgrounds transform into a pleasingly turquoise sea as father sets sail; fat black outlines circumnavigate simple, round cheery shapes of the ten, wide-eyed, pink-faced cherubs, in a bright, refreshing style that shares a sensibility with Lucy Cousins’s art. The lone sailboat afloat in the ocean is a deliberate contrast to the clutter and confusion of life with ten children.(Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8037-2446-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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