With some outstanding pages and others falling short, this is a book of opposites indeed.
Stone-faced dogs drolly demonstrate opposites through ambitious paper engineering.
Digitally rendered in a retro-modern style, simple unlined shapes make up each pup’s brightly colored body, complemented by patterned snouts, paws, and tails. Each dog is set against a vibrantly colored full-bleed background, but on some pages a motley collection of colors can be visually chaotic. If the book’s colors can be too bright, its pups can be too bland. When the dogs are interacting and not staring impassively ahead, they have abundant charm. A sweet embrace between the “front/back” canine buddies or the inversely patterned “right side up/upside down” pair who gaze at each other have just the right touch of heart, and it helps that those pages are also harmoniously colored. As a concept book, it offers a solid selection of oppositional pairs rendered concretely enough for young readers to understand the differences in the set. It also boasts innovative paper engineering, with a die-cut spotted dog that becomes a solidly colored pooch or an accordion fold that makes the long dog lengthy indeed. Its best pages play with the medium, with a flip that exchanges dogs from “inside” to “outside” a doghouse. Other flaps flop, coming immediately loose or wrinkling, and some have painfully sharp corners.
With some outstanding pages and others falling short, this is a book of opposites indeed. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: May 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0062-1
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Candlewick Studio
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
