HICKORY, DICKORY, DOCK

A digitally illustrated board book presents familiar nursery rhymes to babies and their caregivers.

Like its companion, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, this title features a die cut in its cover. This book’s reveals a gold-metallic clock face, and its companion’s, a silvery star. Such design features are the only notable embellishments in either title, otherwise presenting fairly straightforward reiterations of well-known rhymes. The rhymes included range from the title ditty and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” to truncated versions of “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star features bedtime-themed rhymes. The art in both books is flat, cartoonish, and colorful, and it features anthropomorphic creatures—the itsy bitsy spider wears raingear, Jack and Jill are a bunny and a dog, Mary, Mary quite contrary is a little fox in a dress, and so on. Most pictures position the characters peering out directly at readers, but even this technique doesn’t ensure engagement, since background details and setting could be overwhelming or distracting for the youngest, who typically best attend to high-contrast illustrations with minimal or reduced backgrounds.

Other, better nursery-rhyme board books abound.