A limited set of animations and interactive effects expertly leveraged into an engaging experience for the very youngest...
From Down Under, a delight for the diaper-clad.
All Larry the lizard wants to do is snooze—so when, at the repeated urgings of the Aussie-accented narrator, young viewers/listeners give him a poke, he stirs, grumbles, makes eye contact and then slips off behind a rock, under a gum tree or up in its branches. When he finally starts to cry, the narrator changes her tune and suggests that “instead of giving Larry a poke / Give Larry a very soft…very gentle…very special…stroke!” Simple, smoothly animated cartoons illustrate this subtly presented lesson in toddler socialization. For added value, the app comes bundled with an elementary game in which players try to get Larry to jump over, rather than bump into, a passing set of rocks and thorny shrubs. Except for the game’s irritatingly jaunty and short-looped music, this is a sure pleaser, interactive on an unusually elemental level and so well pitched in pictures and premise to its intended audience that requests for repeat encounters are near certain.
A limited set of animations and interactive effects expertly leveraged into an engaging experience for the very youngest app-heads. (iPad storybook app. 1-3)Pub Date: May 4, 2010
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Wasabi Productions
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver.
The farmyard's chickens experience Halloween.
A round, full moon shines in the sky, and the chickens of Boynton's barnyard are feeling “nervous.” Pumpkins shine “with flickering eyes,” witches and wizards wander the pastures, and one chicken has seen “a mouse of enormous size.” It’s Halloween night, and readers will delight as the chickens huddle together and try to figure out what's going on. All ends well, of course, and in Boynton's trademark silly style. (It’s really quite remarkable how her ranks of white, yellow-beaked chickens evoke rows of candy corn.) At this point parents and children know what they're in for when they pick up a book by the prolific author, and she doesn't disappoint here. The chickens are silly, the pigs are cute, and the coloring and illustrations evoke a warmth that little ones wary of Halloween will appreciate. For children leery of the ghouls and goblins lurking in the holiday's iconography, this is a perfect antidote, emphasizing all the fun Halloween has to offer.
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7611-9300-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
This will have readers putting on their dancing shoes to do the “cha cha cha” with their dino-babies
It's not the first time dinosaurs have been featured in a clever Boynton board book. It seems she—and we—can't get enough.
As her fans know, Boynton has a sly wit that respects the intelligence of her young fans and amuses the adults asked to “read it again.” In this book she introduces nine dinosaurs, each of which dances in a way that seems totally appropriate for that particular species. “The blue Stegosaurus goes SHIMMY SHIMMY SHAKE. / The red Brontosaurus goes QUIVERY QUAKE.” Drawing on her experience as a children’s musician, she writes a text that trips along like a song with rhymes that make sense but don't intrude. The illustrations, typical Boynton, reflect her greeting-card background. They are cartoonish but manage to capture the unique personality of each creature. The unnamed dinosaur narrator looks genuinely distraught at not being able to name the “tiny little dino” that “goes DEEDLY DEE.” Spoiler alert: the tiny little dinosaur is probably Compsognathus and would be about the size of a small chicken. Young dinophiles would be impressed if the dinosaurologists in their lives could supply that factoid, but alas, they will have to look it up.
This will have readers putting on their dancing shoes to do the “cha cha cha” with their dino-babies . (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8099-4
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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