Featuring typical opposites in familiar settings, this board book offers little new.
Ten pairs of common opposing concepts are featured in this board book for toddlers, with active illustrations of diverse people of a variety of ages, hair, and skin color.
The settings, a different one on each double-page spread, are ones that many young children are familiar with. A bus filled with people, including a woman in a hijab, goes “Over” a bridge, while a small boat goes “Under” it; children play and swim in the “Wet” waves while others play on the “Dry” beach. There is just one capitalized word on each page, and the illustrations are done with watercolor and colored pencil in a muted multicolored palette that complements the spare delivery. Some spreads vary from the single-setting presentation, instead featuring the same setting in opposing conditions. On the verso representing “Hot” is a pond in summer, with kids wearing shorts and sleeveless dresses and eating ice cream. On the recto, “Cold,” bundled-up kids skate on the same pond. Opposites are a difficult concept for young children to understand, and some of the pairings in this book are either too subtle or not well-portrayed, such as “Open” and “Closed” (umbrellas on a rainy day), “Near” and “Far” (subway trains), and “Stop” and “Go” (halted traffic and walking pedestrians, including a girl who uses a wheelchair).
Featuring typical opposites in familiar settings, this board book offers little new. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4867-1460-5
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Appealing characters, novel presentation, and useful concepts—a winner! (Board book. 1-3)
A clever introduction to the concept of opposites for the board-book set.
Clear, simple drawings and the ingenious use of die-cut pages illustrate several paired, contrary concepts. Zoe, a zebra, and her friend Zack, a chameleon, introduce readers to a series of geographical, physical, and emotional antipodes. On the first two pages, the two friends run down parallel sets of stairs; turn the page with the die-cut staircase, and those very same images of Zoe and Zack appear to be bounding up the stairs. In the next spread, Zoe and Zack sit sadly, watching a caged bird. Turn the die-cut page, and the bars of the cage become the stems of flowers, as the bird flies free to the obvious delight of the now-happy friends. Readers will easily grasp the contrasted concepts, although not all of the words are exact antonyms. “Happy” is paired with “sad” and also with “angry.” A castle is “knocked down,” rather than broken, and then “fixed.” The book was originally published in French; some of the featured terms may have been more obvious opposites prior to (the uncredited) translation. Perhaps the weakest pairing is “upset” and “not upset anymore,” although the expression of opposites through negation is a useful, age-appropriate construction, and the meaning, expressed in terms of lost ice cream and the palliative power of sharing, couldn’t be clearer.
Appealing characters, novel presentation, and useful concepts—a winner! (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-2-74708-700-1
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
While it is (mostly) an appropriately simple introduction to the sport, the lack of player diversity is discouraging, if not...
A baseball-shaped primer for the littlest sluggers.
Brimming with baseball facts, each round page presents heavily captioned photos and one or two sentences of declarative text. Baseball vocabulary abounds, and little ones can learn the names of the equipment, the positions, various kinds of pitches (“The pitch can be a curveball, slider, fastball, or sinker”), and a few different rules (“If the batter hits the ball, they run to first base”). In the photos, almost all the players, who have a range of hair lengths and look as though they could be both male and female, are white. The final double-page spread shows two different celebratory shots of two apparently all-white Little League teams, with nary a person of color in sight. The small trim size is approximately 5 inches in diameter, which confines the little action that is portrayed, and the narrow binding will likely not survive robust play or library circulation.
While it is (mostly) an appropriately simple introduction to the sport, the lack of player diversity is discouraging, if not out-and-out astonishing. (Board book. 2-3)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-0399-4
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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