This tale’s gorgeous images and graceful poetry should inspire travelers to see the world’s beauty.
Inviting locations around the world fill the pages of this illustrated, rhyming alphabet book.
“A is for alleyways, all painted blue,” readers are told, as a White girl and a tan-skinned boy walk down a blue street in Chefchaouen, the “blue city” of Morocco. On each page, a short phrase describes the remarkable thing about a place (named in small print), with the same two kids appearing somewhere in a glorious spread of color and magic. Ratti’s fluid poetry leads readers from one page to the next, across five of the seven continents, visiting attractions both well known (the Valley of the Queens in Luxor, Egypt) and less frequently represented (the reflective salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia). The majestic sites are wide ranging. Some showcase ancient landmarks; others feature natural wonders (the monarch migration in Angangueo, Mexico) or popular celebrations (the Yi Peng lantern festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand). While the larger text on each page is designed for youngsters to decipher, the vocabulary words (pointed, monarchs) may require emergent readers to pause to sound them out. Lap readers will happily pore over Bergeron’s lovely digital illustrations, which capture the enchantment of each of these places in the realism of her landscapes. Half of the book features locations in the Americas, with Africa and Asia each showing up for five letters, Europe three, and Australia and Antarctica missing from the story.
This tale’s gorgeous images and graceful poetry should inspire travelers to see the world’s beauty.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73783-011-5
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Rattling Press
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come.
Little Blue Truck and his pal Toad meet friends old and new on a springtime drive through the country.
This lift-the-flap, interactive entry in the popular Little Blue Truck series lacks the narrative strength and valuable life lessons of the original Little Blue Truck (2008) and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (2009). Both of those books, published for preschoolers rather than toddlers, featured rich storylines, dramatic, kinetic illustrations, and simple but valuable life lessons—the folly of taking oneself too seriously, the importance of friends, and the virtue of taking turns, for example. At about half the length and with half as much text as the aforementioned titles, this volume is a much quicker read. Less a story than a vernal celebration, the book depicts a bucolic drive through farmland and encounters with various animals and their young along the way. Beautifully rendered two-page tableaux teem with butterflies, blossoms, and vibrant pastel, springtime colors. Little Blue greets a sheep standing in the door of a barn: “Yoo-hoo, Sheep! / Beep-beep! / What’s new?” Folding back the durable, card-stock flap reveals the barn’s interior and an adorable set of twin lambs. Encounters with a duck and nine ducklings, a cow with a calf, a pig with 10 (!) piglets, a family of bunnies, and a chicken with a freshly hatched chick provide ample opportunity for counting and vocabulary work.
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-544-93809-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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