SHANNA’S TEACHER SHOW

Marzollo’s sapient heroine, Shanna, demonstrates the art of teaching with vivacious role-playing that makes this latest edition in the series (Shanna’s Doctor Show, not reviewed, etc.) a rousing success. Along with her “assistant” Shane, Shanna offers a variety of hints to help sleuths discover what to expect at school. Shanna’s clues will be familiar fare for preschoolers: books, crayons, musical instruments, as well as numbers and letters, are all presented in bouncy rhymes. “And now we find we have arrived at Clue Number 3. / We will learn the alphabet all the way from A to Z!” Clues and rhymes conclude in a snappy review at tale’s end. A jaunty rhythm combined with plentiful repetition encourages reader participation. Evans’s cartoon-style illustrations feature bright pastel backgrounds and endearingly rendered figures. The conversational blurbs inserted into the pictures provide ample comic opportunities, along with the cavorting of the animal trio of Ducky, Dinah-saurus, and Tiger. Evans packs plenty of educational tidbits into his pictures; both the alphabet and the numbers from one through twenty parade across the top of separate spreads. Erudite and exuberant, Shanna definitely delivers the goods on teachers. (Picture book. 3-7)