Short, simple, sweet and stimulating.
A hedgehog heads home when he realizes that winter is imminent.
Pookie makes his way across the changing landscape in the hope that he can get home before cold weather sets in. The plot, it seems, lies in helping the wee hedgehog get home safely and without too much discomfort. Readers are asked to help him find food, chart his course across a flowing river and dress him in warm clothes. There are a few other tasks most preschoolers will delight in, including making snowflakes appear, popping them and helping a tree shed its leaves. Take away the Tamagotchi-like busywork, however, and eight pages could easily be reduced to two. In addition to the story itself, though, there’s a bonus that at first glance looks like a run-of-the-mill paint feature. But upon further examination, readers will find a unique storyboard interface. Backgrounds can be changed, and objects from the story can be imported and scaled. Additionally, if kids want to add their own artistic flair to the composition, they can paint directly on a superimposed layer that can be discarded without trashing anything else. Second- and third-generation iPad users have another nifty option: taking a photo and using it as a (nonscalable) backdrop. Completed creations can be saved, exported to Facebook or emailed.
Short, simple, sweet and stimulating. (iPad storybook app. 18 mos.-5)Pub Date: April 11, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Gutpela
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
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
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A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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