Simple, evocative text and exquisite illustrations make this one to savor.
An interactive celebration of butterflies and beauty.
“Sometimes butterflies are blue like the sea… / Pink like candy… / Yellow like the sun….” Each double-page spread features a large, delicately rendered watercolor butterfly accompanied by simple objects in the same color family. The final butterfly is white: “It’s plain, isn’t it? But look what happens when a drop of water lands on its wings and rolls around.” Here, a shiny drop of water adorns one of the white butterfly’s wings. On the next double-page spread, a die-cut butterfly is positioned over a multicolored final page, “reflecting all the colors of the rainbow.” This die-cut butterfly as well as the one on the front cover will encourage little ones to experiment with placing different colors and patterns beneath the cutouts to create their own butterflies. For the most part, a pleasing symmetry is achieved as the objects mentioned in the simple, poetic text are pictured along with the butterfly. In a couple of instances, this symmetry is missing (the butterfly “brown as the earth” is surrounded by a scattering of brown leaves, for instance), but this isn’t enough to mar the loveliness of these pages.
Simple, evocative text and exquisite illustrations make this one to savor. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-988-8240-96-8
Page Count: 30
Publisher: minedition
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bound to put a smile on readers’ faces.
As the title says, this is a book of shapes—but with a little touch of whimsy.
A goofy-looking emu on the cover, with wispy feathers in beautiful shades of purple and turquoise, forewarns readers there is more to the book than simple shapes. And it delivers. The first spread presents a wood-grained green circle against a white background and a simple, straightforward statement: “This is a circle.” Next comes a red square and “This is a square.” Next, a blue triangle and “This is a triangle.” Next comes an emu. An emu? The deadpan narration announces, “This is an emu pushing a pancake wagon down the hill.” Readers are now in the know; what other quirky appearances might there be? The book does not disappoint. Interspersed with other basic shapes, a porpoise reading knock-knock jokes and a skateboarding rhinoceros also show up in the same matter-of-fact way. Being in on the joke, children will have no difficulty accepting the juxtaposition of simple shapes and silly animal antics as perfectly sensible. But when a plain pineapple makes an appearance, readers will agree with the author: “What is that doing here?” The final spread shows animals and shapes but no pineapple—after all, it doesn’t belong here—having fun at the beach.
Bound to put a smile on readers’ faces. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0701-9
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
Short, sweet, and engaging; a sing-along introduction to furry first responders.
“The Wheels on the Bus” gets an extra syllable, a siren, a hose, and a snazzy new ladder.
This variation on the popular children’s song should hit the spot with budding truck aficionados among the diapered set. The text is a straight adaptation of “The Wheels on the Bus,” with firetruck and firefighting themes replacing the sights and sounds of a bus rider’s commute. The siren goes “Woo-woo-woo,” the lights go “Flash, flash, flash,” the riders “hold on tight,” the ladder goes “up, up, up,” and the hose, of course, goes “swish-swish-swish—now, the fire’s out.” The book won’t win awards for originality, but it should be a toddler pleaser. The colors on the cover are an explosion of reflective red foil against a bright yellow background; the interior colors are more muted but still bright and cheery. The firefighters and onlookers are anthropomorphic animals in firefighter costume or civvies, as the case may be. Characters include a racoon, some bunnies, a fox, and a woodchuck, among others, all rendered in an accessible, cartoony style. Between the bright colors and the smiling gameness of the furry firefighters, the proceedings should excite and delight most tots.
Short, sweet, and engaging; a sing-along introduction to furry first responders. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4244-3
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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