Colorful fun for the littlest listeners.
Identify and learn about colors in this soft but durable book.
Designed by someone familiar with the particular kinds of, erm, love and attention that babies give books, this offering stands up to being chewed, moistened, and tugged upon. Less successfully, it’s insubstantially thin, meaning it may quickly vanish into a diaper bag’s detritus. However, if one can find it, it’s a treat to share with a little one. Graphically simple domestic and neighborhood scenes in lively primary colors are populated with cheery, doll-like characters. The pages are organically filled with circle-cheeked people of various skin tones and ethnicities as well as a person using a wheelchair. Simple text lyrically discusses the color featured on each double-page spread, engaging kids through a patterned text that presents specific questions followed by open-ended ones: “Feel the cool green grass? What else is green?” There’s plenty to find amid the flat art, such as green frogs and turtles or yellow bananas or giraffes, setting the stage for meaningful interaction and vocabulary building. It all wraps up on a sunny playground, with all of the colors surrounding the children in a “colorful world.” Companion books about shapes and numbers are almost as successful; the art’s clean lines work especially well in Baby, Find the Shapes. Baby Let’s Count stars ever popular farm animals, but having the numbers one to four sharing a double-page spread is confusingly busy.
Colorful fun for the littlest listeners. (Board book. 6 mos.-2)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5235-0623-1
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
A fun, utilitarian vocabulary builder that begs to be picked up and touched.
In the tradition of Pat the Bunny, this effort offers plenty of opportunity for tactile exploration.
Though it lacks the inventiveness, charm, and nontactile sensory provocations that make Pat the Bunny an enduring classic, this gives little hands plenty to grab, feel, touch, and experience. There are no “Paul and Judy” on hand to emulate, but the die-cut, fuzzy handprint in the middle of the thick, cardboard cover makes the book’s intent and methodology clear to its audience. So does the admonition, “Let’s Get Hands-on!” accompanying a photo of a little White child with fingers and palms covered in different colors of paint. The next page lists 10 different textures along with photographs of items that act as examples of each. Featured sensations are “fluffy, crinkly, smooth, bumpy, sticky, spongy, furry, rough, scratchy, [and] soft.” Each texture gets a two-page spread featuring several different items or creatures that feel that way and one large example with a die-cut hole and an embedded tactile element of the corresponding texture. The book features plenty of vocabulary, including three synonyms for each type of texture. There’s a descriptive sentence: “Fluffy things feel light and airy,” for example. Questions add an interactive element, inviting children to explore for themselves: “If you run your finger along something crinkly, what kind of noise does it make?”
A fun, utilitarian vocabulary builder that begs to be picked up and touched. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68010-656-5
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An educational and uplifting foundation in financial mindsets and rules of thumb.
A walking, talking billfold of cash takes readers through the ins and outs of money.
Held together by a shiny gold clip and often accompanied by anthropomorphic coins, our narrator is a smiley, positive presence who eats pizza and rides a bike, just like us! Money explains its value as well as how to earn it (mowing lawns, selling lemonade), spend it, save it, and share it. The narrator uses clothing as a metaphor to explain different forms of money—sometimes the narrator dons “digital and crypto clothes,” though the author doesn’t elaborate on these. A similar reference to “credit card coats” is accompanied by a warning on overspending. Most commendable are reminders of readers' self-worth: Though readers are encouraged to invest in themselves, it’s made abundantly clear that money does not confer value to people. A message about earning interest is followed by a wordless page of coins and bills passing by a bank and a credit union—concepts that are a bit too advanced to describe in detail for this book’s audience. For now, tracking savings in a clear jar (not a piggy bank) is advanced enough. A guinea pig appears throughout the cheerful, textured art, making a suitably cute sidekick for the narrator.
An educational and uplifting foundation in financial mindsets and rules of thumb. (money tips) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781728271262
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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