Delightful wordplay.
A lively exploration of animal names with matching action words.
Opening with “Two yaks yak loudly” and closing with “Hounds hound a celebrity,” this introduction to 16 animals with names that also act as action verbs proves playful and entertaining. Each animal’s name and its corresponding sound-alike verb are used in a short sentence printed in large, bold type, with the verb’s phonetic pronunciation and definition printed in smaller type below. Dynamic, colorful, comical double-page illustrations add a surprising, lighthearted visual context for each pair. For “a duck ducks just in time,” the illustration reveals a duck on a construction site wearing a hard hat ducking to avoid a beam. Illustrating “a bear bears bread and butter,” a bear working as a waiter in a restaurant totes a tray of bakery treats. And when “a bat bats last,” a bat wearing a baseball helmet prepares to swing at an approaching ball. Rendered with visual and verbal panache, other unexpected and amusing scenarios include a perch perching in a tree to dive, cranes craning their necks to see in a movie theater, and flounders floundering as they attempt to ride bicycles. Young readers may need some help in understanding a few of them, as with the bug that does not pester others but rather eavesdrops via a listening device. Some readers may cavil at the depiction of bald eagles in the “hawk hawks hats” scene.
Delightful wordplay. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5037-5709-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sunbird Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Bruce Goldstone’s Awesome Autumn (2012) is still the gold standard.
Rotner follows Hello Spring (2017) with this salute to the fall season.
Name a change seen in northern climes in fall, and Rotner likely covers it here, from plants, trees, and animals to the food we harvest: seeds are spread, the days grow shorter and cooler, the leaves change and fall (and are raked up and jumped in), some animals migrate, and many families celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving. As in the previous book, the photographs (presented in a variety of sizes and layouts, all clean) are the stars here, displaying both the myriad changes of the season and a multicultural array of children enjoying the outdoors in fall. These are set against white backgrounds that make the reddish-orange print pop. The text itself uses short sentences and some solid vocabulary (though “deep sleep” is used instead of “hibernate”) to teach readers the markers of autumn, though in the quest for simplicity, Rotner sacrifices some truth. In several cases, the addition of just a few words would have made the following oversimplified statements reflect reality: “Birds grow more feathers”; “Cranberries float and turn red.” Also, Rotner includes the statement “Bees store extra honey in their hives” on a page about animals going into deep sleep, implying that honeybees hibernate, which is false.
Bruce Goldstone’s Awesome Autumn (2012) is still the gold standard. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3869-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Adults will do better skipping the book and talking with their children.
Social-equity themes are presented to children in ABC format.
Terms related to intersectional inequality, such as “class,” “gender,” “privilege,” “oppression,” “race,” and “sex,” as well as other topics important to social justice such as “feminism,” “human being,” “immigration,” “justice,” “kindness,” “multicultural,” “transgender,” “understanding,” and “value” are named and explained. There are 26 in all, one for each letter of the alphabet. Colorful two-page spreads with kid-friendly illustrations present each term. First the term is described: “Belief is when you are confident something exists even if you can’t see it. Lots of different beliefs fill the world, and no single belief is right for everyone.” On the facing page it concludes: “B is for BELIEF / Everyone has different beliefs.” It is hard to see who the intended audience for this little board book is. Babies and toddlers are busy learning the names for their body parts, familiar objects around them, and perhaps some basic feelings like happy, hungry, and sad; slightly older preschoolers will probably be bewildered by explanations such as: “A value is an expression of how to live a belief. A value can serve as a guide for how you behave around other human beings. / V is for VALUE / Live your beliefs out loud.”
Adults will do better skipping the book and talking with their children. (Board book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78603-742-8
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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