Stunning photography with high appeal for little animal enthusiasts.
Guess the animal based on its wings.
This board book truly is as simple as it sounds: It’s a book about animals and their wings. The featured animals range from the eye-catching (monarch) “butterfly” to the brightly colored “parrot” (a scarlet macaw). A detailed, close-up photograph of part of an animal’s wings is accompanied by a question asking who they belong to. A full-bleed, double-page spread follows, showing a different picture of the whole animal, which adds a bit of suspense. Younger readers might be expecting the colorful underside of the parrot’s wing based on the close-up, but a turn of the page reveals the bird sitting wings closed at its side. Crow includes rich vocabulary words for young readers, like “wrinkled” and “patterned,” as descriptors. The full-color photographs are beautiful and bold, and the close-ups are laid against a white background, helping details stand out. The other books in this series, Coats, Horns, and Scales, follow the same format. Horns impresses with animals uncommon to board books, such as the alpine ibex, markhor, and highland cow. The simplicity of the text and format suggests a younger reader, but the matching skills suggest a slightly older one. Overall, this one will appeal to both age groups thanks to its beautiful photography and the guessing element.
Stunning photography with high appeal for little animal enthusiasts. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4867-1659-3
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Interactive, reasonably durable, and (except for that “hive”) respectably informative entries in an above-average series.
“One Baby Bee” has other creatures to meet before she finds her 10 “buzzy” siblings.
First Baby Bee meets “Two wiggly worms,” passes “Three pretty flowers” to see “Four noisy birds,” and so on—the even-numbered animals all popping up in groups from beneath big, sturdy flaps (puzzlingly, the even numbers are not printed in boldface). Fuzziness rules in the pictures, as the bee (there seems to be only one, multiplied for the final scene) looks like a decorated yellow tennis ball, and, except for a flowerpot, a birdhouse, and nine wooden apples, all of the figures in the sunny garden scenes are crocheted or made from felt or cloth. The “hive” (actually, as is all too common, a wasps’ nest) Baby Bee’s family lives in has a soft, sculptural quality. Materials are more varied in the co-published First Words, in which some three dozen labeled toys, paper images, plastic and plush food, articles of clothing, and fabric play figures (including, as the only humanoid, white “Daisy Dolly”) aim to expand toddlers’ vocabularies significantly. Both volumes sport rounded corners and are printed on heavy, wipeable card stock.
Interactive, reasonably durable, and (except for that “hive”) respectably informative entries in an above-average series. (Pop-up board book. 1-3)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4654-6840-6
Page Count: 12
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
For its age-appropriate facts, but most especially for its sweet and inviting illustrations, this is a nice addition to a...
Vibrant illustrations accompany various facts about baby animals in this toddler-friendly board book.
From the start, readers won’t be able to help but smile at Fuge’s charming illustrations of baby animals; there’s a tiny duck grasping at the finger of a baby chimpanzee! The rhyming quatrains keep the pace moving as they convey very basic facts about baby animals, perfect for a toddler audience. It’s true that meerkats are immune to the venom of some snakes, and so Fuge writes, “Meerkat babies aren’t afraid of snakes, as you can see,” to accompany an illustration of gleeful, teasing meerkats and a frazzled snake, a wonderful way to explain a complicated fact. Fuge’s watercolor images walk the line between realistic and cartoon, giving the animals clear personality while still appearing true-to-life. For the most part, the rhymes read well and aren’t forced, though many eyes will be rolling at the line “Daddy sea horse has the babies, without any fuss.” Though it doesn’t make any sense in terms of adherence to reality, the final double-page spread of the baby animals asleep in a pile is simply adorable.
For its age-appropriate facts, but most especially for its sweet and inviting illustrations, this is a nice addition to a toddler’s bookshelf. (Board book. 18 mos-3)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63322-548-0
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Moondance/Quarto
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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