Never pedantic, this book encourages a fun, developmentally appropriate way to look at the world.
“Pitter, pitter, pat! Pitter, pitter, pat!...Hey, it’s a pitter, pitter pattern!”
Spots (on a dog), nested diamonds (on the wallpaper), houndstooth (on clothing)—there are so many patterns to see! At first, Hesselberth presents sequences textually with visual support as main character Lu, with light-brown skin and dark-brown hair, helps her friends (a short, black-presenting child and a tall, white-presenting child) remove their wet boots. Then the days of the week carry the narrative along to next Sunday, when Lu can see her friends again. There are patterns to identify in each day’s activity, like the pentagons on a soccer ball, beats in a musical piece, and intricate quilt patterns. Guided identification transitions easily into open questions (“Are there patterns here?”) for nature scenes viewed with Lu’s interracial family. Geometric illustrations are chock full of patterns to spot, but the sweeping two-paged spreads are never overwhelming, partially thanks to strategically juxtaposed colors. Hesselberth includes backmatter on pattern types (repeating vs. growing) and places to find patterns (nature, time, etc.) to prompt further discussions. The text and essential pictures offer bountiful opportunities for reader interaction, whether one-on-one or in a group setting. Young ones can verbally identify or point to their discoveries or participate in rhythmic clapping and repetitive dance moves. There’s lots to discover as well as several methods to access the lesson.
Never pedantic, this book encourages a fun, developmentally appropriate way to look at the world. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-274123-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
Funny and spirited (and secretly educational, but nobody will notice).
Punctuation with pizzazz.
How does an exclamation mark learn his purpose? Pre-readers and readers alike will giggle and cheer to see the process. The setting is a warm yellowish beige background with a faint pulpy pattern and repeating horizontal lines with dotted lines halfway between them—penmanship paper. Each bold, black punctuation mark has a minimalist yet expressive face inside its circular dot. “He stood out,” explains the first page, as the titular protagonist looks on doubtfully. He tries hanging around with periods, but squishing his extension down into a spring doesn’t really work; even prostrate, “he just wasn’t like everyone else. Period.” (Hee! Rosenthal gleefully puns instead of naming any punctuation.) Mournful, “confused, flummoxed, and deflated,” the exclamation mark’s line tangles and flops. Then someone unexpected arrives. “Hello? Who are you?” queries the newbie, jovially pummeling the exclamation mark with 17 manic inquiries at once. “Stop!” screams the exclamation mark in enormous, bumpy-edged letters—and there’s his identity! The outburst’s anxious vibe dissipates immediately (and the question mark is undaunted by being yelled at). Finally, the protagonist has “[broken] free from a life sentence.” Snapping up usages that match his newfound personality, he zooms back to show the other punctuation marks. The zippy relationship between exclamation mark and question mark continues beyond the acknowledgements page.
Funny and spirited (and secretly educational, but nobody will notice). (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-43679-3
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
PROFILES
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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