An attractive and enchanting bedtime story.
Constellations come out and play at night.
Sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” this board book introduces little readers to the numerous creatures that light up the night sky. Little ones can use their fingers to trace the shapes of Leo, Orion, Cygnus, and more as the sky grows darker and darker and the stars shine brighter and brighter. A large, die-cut star filled with shiny, slightly wrinkled Mylar appears opposite the traditional, final verse of the familiar rhyme, which substitutes “crinkle” for “twinkle,” to end the book, engaging readers for one last lovely experience. The book works like gangbusters as a bedtime story, lulling tired bodies with a familiar tune and deep, warm colors. The diagrams of the constellations are overlaid with fetching illustrations of a brave lion, a smiling archer, a flying swan, and more. The back cover is constructed with a further layer of crinkled material between board and paper, lending tactile interest, and the shiny stuff appears behind Ursa Major and Ursa Minor in peek-through cutouts on the cover.
An attractive and enchanting bedtime story. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5235-0120-5
Page Count: 17
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
While the youngster was pleasingly more self-reliant and self-assured in previous offerings, his play and his interactions...
As in In the Garden and In the Woods (both 2012), a young boy enjoys life in the great outdoors.
Here, he delights in a day at the beach. One, two or three words on each page make up the rhyming text: “Sun Sky / Shore Boy // Sand Pail / Spade Toy.” The youngster makes a sand birthday cake with his shovel and pail, but an inevitable wave destroys it. His mother, nearby, comforts him with a picnic lunch and a “Lap Nap” as he dreams of the sea. Oliphant’s soft drawings, which look to be a mix of watercolor and colored pencil, capture the flow of sand and water well, though beach-going children will wonder at the pair’s solitude on this apparently perfect summer day.
While the youngster was pleasingly more self-reliant and self-assured in previous offerings, his play and his interactions with the natural world continue to ring true. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-56145-583-6
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
A sweet story with lovely illustrations to boot, developmentally pitch-perfect for older babies and toddlers.
A little hedgehog hurries home in an effort to avoid a coming storm in this bilingual board book.
A baby hedgehog is out rooting around for “good things to eat.” Suddenly, storm clouds appear on the horizon, an owl hoots a warning, and soon the little critter is on the way home to Mama. The bottom half of each double-page spread is filled with beautiful, inky illustrations. The top half is further divided in two: the right side dedicated to English text and the left devoted to corresponding Mandarin Chinese (with the occasional exclamation point or question mark). Little ones will thrill at the hedgehog's ever-so-slightly perilous journey home, and older ones will enjoy figuring how the English words translate and vice versa. The hedgehog’s flight introduces the vocabulary of the natural world—clouds, wind, pine cones—as well as onomatopoeia and a fresh cultural reference: “Rain falls hard like soybeans.” Stylized animals and flora have good, distinct outlines and are filled with bright but still-natural colors. The final pages of the book supply a helpful glossary of tones and the story reproduced in both characters and pinyin. A companion board book entitled Squirrel Round and Round publishes simultaneously.
A sweet story with lovely illustrations to boot, developmentally pitch-perfect for older babies and toddlers. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6598-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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