Even young sleuths who had little trouble finding Waldo may be challenged by some of these exercises in pattern recognition.
Combining the premises of Odd One Out (2014) and Where’s the Pair? (2015), galleries of almost identical birds, teddy bears, colorful socks, ice cream cones, and other items invite readers to match up identical pairs—then find outliers.
Good luck with that. Against misleadingly simple monochrome backgrounds, Teckentrup arranges odd numbers of familiar items—from 11 birds to 61 colored pencils—composed of multiple small geometrical elements. Haworth tells readers what to do in accompanying verses: “These red-and-white toadstools / are covered in spots, / and the ladybugs, too, / have splendid black dots. / Match up the toadstools— / there are two of each kind. / But there’s one with no mate, / which you have to find!” Several maddeningly similar mushrooms of slightly varying sizes and spot density are placed on a deep-green field, each with a ladybug that has the same number of spots as its mushroom. Spotting the one mushroom-and-ladybug pair that does not have a corresponding match is a significant challenge. The puzzles appear in an apparently arbitrary sequence rather than in increasing order of difficulty, but the final one, in which pairs (plus one unspecified singleton) drawn from all the previous pages are scattered, truly caps the lot.
Even young sleuths who had little trouble finding Waldo may be challenged by some of these exercises in pattern recognition. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9319-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Big Picture/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts.
A playful counting book also acts as a celebration of family and human diversity.
Shannon’s text is delivered in spare, rhythmic, lilting verse that begins with one and counts up to 10 as it presents different groupings of things and people in individual families, always emphasizing the unitary nature of each combination. “One is six. One line of laundry. One butterfly’s legs. One family.” Gomez’s richly colored pictures clarify and expand on all that the text lists: For “six,” a picture showing six members of a multigenerational family of color includes a line of laundry with six items hanging from it outside of their windows, as well as the painting of a six-legged butterfly that a child in the family is creating. While text never directs the art to depict diverse individuals and family constellations, Gomez does just this in her illustrations. Interracial families are included, as are depictions of men with their arms around each other, and a Sikh man wearing a turban. This inclusive spirit supports the text’s culminating assertion that “One is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family.”
A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: May 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-374-30003-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
