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SHAPES AND COLORS

Name: SHAPES AND COLORS
Author: John Canty
ISBN: 978-0-6450696-8-6

by John Canty ; illustrated by John Canty ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 28, 2021

A stellar concept title and a fine choice for both one-on-one and group sharing.

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Australian author/illustrator Canty builds a conceptual guessing game around the rainbow’s seven colors.

Beginning with red, a double spread presents silhouettes of solid-color shapes against white space, text asking “What’s red?” Children are invited to guess the identities of these scarlet-hued images—some familiar, others mysterious—based on their shapes and contours. A page turn reveals the same images, now labelled and lushly painted, set against a bright red background: twin cherries with adjoining stems; a ladybug; a fire truck with hose and ladder; and more. This pattern holds through the succeeding six rainbow hues. Scale is irrelevant here—a banana dwarfs both a honeybee and a taxi cab. Some pictures are solidly aligned with their colors: an orange orange, green peas, violet violets. Other items (a balloon, boots, a shirt, a comb) have perhaps been selected more for their daily familiarity for preschoolers than their affinity with specific colors. Two later spreads beckon readers to ponder colors in the city and countryside, imbuing both landscapes with brilliant color and verve. The rainbow is introduced last, its colors labeled. Canty’s illustrations are exquisitely clear, drawing children in first to guess at the silhouetted mystery images, then to linger over the beautifully painted ones.

A stellar concept title and a fine choice for both one-on-one and group sharing. (Picture book. 2-5)

Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-6450696-8-6

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Berbay Publishing

Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS

- BOOK REVIEW
HEADS AND TAILS
by John Canty ; illustrated by John Canty

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LITTLE BLUE TRUCK'S CHRISTMAS

by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2014

Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...

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The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.

The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.

Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3

Page Count: 24

Publisher: HMH Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE BLUE TRUCK MAKES A FRIEND
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry

- BOOK REVIEW
TIME FOR SCHOOL, LITTLE BLUE TRUCK
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by John Joseph

- BOOK REVIEW
LITTLE BLUE TRUCK'S VALENTINE
by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by John Joseph

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ANIMAL SHAPES

by Christopher Silas Neal ; illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2018

Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.

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You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!

What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?

Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)