Some may find this simplistic and oversold, but a few highly industrious parents and creative teachers, eager to more fully...
An ambitious picture-book introduction to the underlying mathematical principles that can be discovered in a major art museum.
It almost works. Part of the new-to-the–U.S. TanTan Math Story series, its premise is simple. A family of four (mother, father, sister, brother) visits a large museum that advertises a major exhibition called (coincidentally) “Discover Math in Art.” Once inside, they tour the carefully structured exhibition galleries and begin to make mathematical and artistic discoveries and connections. A number of familiar paintings are introduced along with their underlying mathematical dimensions: Jasper Johns’ 0 Through 9 shows numerals; Seurat’s work demonstrates dots; while Kandinsky and Leger evidence geometric shapes. Changing point of view can be seen via Degas’ dancers, while Picasso’s abstractions simultaneously incorporate various directions and angles. Distance, depth and even time (Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory) are also explored. Unfortunately the backmatter, featuring a few rudimentary follow-up activities, skimps on the art information. The book lacks a list of resources and further suggestions for more learning about either math or art.
Some may find this simplistic and oversold, but a few highly industrious parents and creative teachers, eager to more fully integrate the arts into Common Core curriculum, may find even these skimpy explorations invigorating. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-939248-03-9
Page Count: 34
Publisher: TanTan
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat.
Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
A sweet and subtle book on sharing.
Rudy’s pink sweater is missing. Readers are invited to follow him as he searches for the sweater.
Rudy is a blue creature with a piggy snout, bunny ears, a thin, tufted tail, and a distraught look on his face. His beloved pink sweater is gone. “It was a bit too small and showed his belly button. But it was his favorite.” Where could it be? In a search that doubles as a countdown from 10 to one, Rudy makes his way through the different rooms of the house—top to bottom, inside and outside. As readers open the wardrobe door, “TEN tumbling cats” provide the first hint as to the sweater’s whereabouts. Following the pink yarn that runs across the pages, readers encounter some surprising creatures in each location—including a crocodile sitting in an outhouse busily knitting—as well as flaps to open and die cuts to peek through. Just as he’s about to give up hope—someone must’ve taken it, but “who would love wearing it as much as he did?”—the answer is revealed: “Trudy! His number ONE sister. The sweater fit her perfectly.” And, as is the nature of stories with a happy ending, Rudy gets a new sweater that fits him, from the knitting crocodile, of course. Plot, interactivity, vocabulary, and counting all contribute in making this an engaging book for the upper edge of the board-book range.
A sweet and subtle book on sharing. (Board book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3679-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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