This colorful and clever tale may miss the educational mark but nails the entertainment.
A yellow cat leads readers through a world of color in this lift-the-flap book that is nominally about the five senses.
First, cat and readers follow a blue rabbit through a black “magical door” flap covering a die cut that leads into a room decorated for a birthday party, complete with a rainbow of hats, a ceiling crowded with multicolored balloons, and a speaker spewing a dancing pattern of musical notes. In this spread, the rhyming text asks children to talk about what they listen to that makes them dance and points out the color pink. This textual pattern continues, as the yellow cat smells and tastes cakes and cookies that are yellow, sees party hats stacked on the head of an orange squirrel, and feels a “cool breeze” blow through a blue sky. The flaps are well designed and easy for small hands to manipulate. Stalker’s illustrations make clever use of patterns that are sure to appeal to young, curious eyes. While the text is musically written and the illustrations are beautifully textured, the book doesn’t quite meet its educational potential. The color noted on each page, for example, is not always the dominant hue and therefore may be difficult for children to identify. The five senses are woven into most pages but not every page and therefore feel tenuously connected. Overall, though, the story is charming and the pictures enjoyable regardless of the educational message’s execution.
This colorful and clever tale may miss the educational mark but nails the entertainment. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35634-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Not a great choice for the youngest dinosaur lovers.
A board-book ode to parental love as old as the dinosaurs.
A line of text on the left of each spread reads like a dinosaur-themed valentine that a third grader might choose, with punishingly punny wordplay that incorporates dinosaur-related words. On the facing page a dinosaur pair—a baby and an adult—gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes against whimsical, pastel-hued prehistoric-ish backgrounds. In smaller print, in all caps, at the bottom of the left page is the scientific name for the dinosaur referenced by the text and picture followed by a helpful phonetic pronunciation guide. White-outlined footprints appear next to their names, though the white is sometimes difficult to see against the pastel pages. Ten of the best-known dinosaurs are included. Twisting the dinosaur names to fit the loving sentiments succeeds some of the time but more often results in tortured text, well beyond the understanding of the board book audience. The line accompanying two hugging velociraptors, for instance, is just confusing: “Wrap-TOR arms around me, / with you I’ll always stay.” Others are just plain clumsy: “I-wanna-GUANODON you kisses, / I truly just adore you.” Very young children, even those fascinated by dinosaurs, will not get it. Older dinosaur fans will be put off by the babyish format.
Not a great choice for the youngest dinosaur lovers. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2295-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday.
Animal parents declare their love for their offspring in alphabetical order.
Each page displays an enormous capital letter, one line of verse with the keyword capitalized, and a loving nonhuman parent gazing adoringly at their baby. “A is for Always. I always love you more. / B is for Butterfly kisses. It’s you that I adore.” While not named or labelled as such, the A is also for an alligator and its hatchling and B is for a butterfly and a butterfly child (not a caterpillar—biology is not the aim of this title) interacting in some way with the said letter. For E there are an elephant and a calf; U features a unicorn and foal; and X, keyed to the last letter of the animal’s name, corresponds to a fox and three pups. The final double-page spread shows all the featured creatures and their babies as the last line declares: “Baby, I love you from A to Z!” The verse is standard fare and appropriately sentimental. The art is cartoony-cute and populated by suitably loving critters on solid backgrounds. Hearts accent each scene, but the theme of the project is never in any doubt.
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2095-6
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
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