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WASHINGTON, DC, BABY!

Name: WASHINGTON, DC, BABY!
Author: Feather Flores
ISBN: 978-1-79720-720-9

From the City Baby series

by Feather Flores ; illustrated by Emily Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2022

A warm welcome to the capital city.

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How fun it is to spend a day as a tourist!

In this new installment of the City Baby picture-book series, an ethnically ambiguous, light-skinned child and their grown-up spend a spring day together sightseeing in Washington, D.C. They visit the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, eat half-smokes (a local delicacy) at Ben’s Chili Bowl, enjoy a picnic in Rock Creek Park, and more. While this book showcases many of the capital city’s key tourist sites, the order in which they are visited is ill-conceived based on geography and practical considerations. The rhyming text scans fairly well, and the names of the landmarks are capitalized in bold font for emphasis. All of the illustrations are double-page, full-bleed spreads, rendered digitally, and the colors are exceptionally bright. Unfortunately, at times the gutter swallows important details. An effective switch from landscape to portrait layout allows readers to experience how striking the Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool are at sundown. Children will have fun matching all of the images on the endpapers to their counterparts in the illustrations. Background characters are racially diverse and include an elderly deaf-blind man, as indicated by his red-and-white cane.

A warm welcome to the capital city. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: March 8, 2022

ISBN: 978-1-79720-720-9

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING

- BOOK REVIEW
THE TWELVE CATS OF CHRISTMAS
by Feather Flores ; illustrated by Carrie Liao

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NO, SILLY!

by Ken Krug ; illustrated by Ken Krug ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

A well-paced romp with nifty response opportunities for little ones.

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Four young friends describe their favorite things to do throughout the day, and sometimes those descriptions take a very silly turn.

In direct first-person narration, a little bear tells readers how he likes to sleep. “I like to sleep in my bed. / I like to sleep in my dad’s big chair. // I like to sleep on my mama’s lap. / And I like to sleep on cookies.” What?! On cookies? This absurdity gives child listeners the chance to gleefully shout, “No, silly! You eat cookies,” as the page is turned to reveal the correct thing to do with cookies. Youngsters will delight in spotting right (“I like to eat apples”) from wrong (“I like to eat books”) in each situation, the turn of the page always giving them ample time to point out a correction. Krug’s oil-paint illustrations are cheery and bright, which add to the whimsy, and interchanging framed pages with double-page spreads gives extra visual cues to help readers spot the silly parts. Facial expressions, alas, are sometimes a bit off. Readers will notice that one correction leads to the next activity, so the cookies lead to eating other foodstuffs, and the aforementioned “books” lead to reading, and so on. The sleepy, nighttime conclusion both brings the slight narrative full circle and makes this a surprising bedtime possibility.

A well-paced romp with nifty response opportunities for little ones. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4814-0066-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING

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I HEAR A PICKLE

AND SMELL, SEE, TOUCH, & TASTE IT, TOO!

by Rachel Isadora ; illustrated by Rachel Isadora ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2016

Teachers, make sure this is on your shelves—it’s a great read-aloud, an easy read for beginning readers, and a model for...

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Only the last page features the titular pickle—the rest of the book is a tribute to the five senses that will resonate with young readers.

Highlighting sensory experiences that will be familiar to the majority of readers, Isadora focuses on one sense at a time, progressing from hearing to smelling, seeing, touching, and tasting (readers can track their progress with a list in the upper right of each spread); she devotes three spreads to all but taste, which gets only two. An ethnically diverse group of young children tell readers what they sense—or don’t—in simple declarative sentences that are sometimes embellished by the kids’ thoughts: “I don’t smell. I have a cold.” “I don’t see the words in my book. / I wear my glasses. I see the words!” “I touch the egg. Oops!” While one girl enjoys PB&J, another says, “I taste a jelly sandwich. I’m allergic to peanuts.” Isadora’s ink-and-watercolor artwork uses vignettes and white backgrounds to bring each sense to the forefront, and children of most skin and hair colors will find at least one face like their own in these pages (glasses are the only depicted disability, however).

Teachers, make sure this is on your shelves—it’s a great read-aloud, an easy read for beginning readers, and a model for student books. (Picture/concept book. 3-6)