A vicarious walk in the woods probably best suited to those with direct experience of a forest hike.
A mom takes her toddler, bundled into a baby backpack, on a walk through the woods.
The text, though lyrical, lacks immediacy. Written in a second-person present tense, it nevertheless comes across as relating what has been seen rather than what is being seen right then. Robinson depicts the pair, changing perspective with each page in a way that is artful but also disorienting to a toddler audience. The pair “reach to leafy maples with winged seeds” and “bend to a painted turtle stretching in the sun.” Another illustration shows the baby’s chubby fingers disturbing a school of minnows. (Exactly how this is accomplished from the confines of a baby backpack is unclear.) When Elmquist describes a dragonfly as a “jewel of blue and green,” both the perspective and palette change, with the dragonfly shown large and mother and baby smaller on a distant path. The woods disappear completely on the second-to-last spread when baby is shown flying in mama’s hands against a bright blue sky alongside 11 (count them) orange butterflies. The pairs’ ethnicities are undefined. The smiling, alert child in a bright yellow shirt and purple knit hat has light skin, while mama is a pony-tailed brunette with slightly darker skin. What is clear is that they are both enjoying a magical encounter with nature.
A vicarious walk in the woods probably best suited to those with direct experience of a forest hike. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: March 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4598-1333-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
Not a great choice for the youngest dinosaur lovers.
A board-book ode to parental love as old as the dinosaurs.
A line of text on the left of each spread reads like a dinosaur-themed valentine that a third grader might choose, with punishingly punny wordplay that incorporates dinosaur-related words. On the facing page a dinosaur pair—a baby and an adult—gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes against whimsical, pastel-hued prehistoric-ish backgrounds. In smaller print, in all caps, at the bottom of the left page is the scientific name for the dinosaur referenced by the text and picture followed by a helpful phonetic pronunciation guide. White-outlined footprints appear next to their names, though the white is sometimes difficult to see against the pastel pages. Ten of the best-known dinosaurs are included. Twisting the dinosaur names to fit the loving sentiments succeeds some of the time but more often results in tortured text, well beyond the understanding of the board book audience. The line accompanying two hugging velociraptors, for instance, is just confusing: “Wrap-TOR arms around me, / with you I’ll always stay.” Others are just plain clumsy: “I-wanna-GUANODON you kisses, / I truly just adore you.” Very young children, even those fascinated by dinosaurs, will not get it. Older dinosaur fans will be put off by the babyish format.
Not a great choice for the youngest dinosaur lovers. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2295-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday.
Animal parents declare their love for their offspring in alphabetical order.
Each page displays an enormous capital letter, one line of verse with the keyword capitalized, and a loving nonhuman parent gazing adoringly at their baby. “A is for Always. I always love you more. / B is for Butterfly kisses. It’s you that I adore.” While not named or labelled as such, the A is also for an alligator and its hatchling and B is for a butterfly and a butterfly child (not a caterpillar—biology is not the aim of this title) interacting in some way with the said letter. For E there are an elephant and a calf; U features a unicorn and foal; and X, keyed to the last letter of the animal’s name, corresponds to a fox and three pups. The final double-page spread shows all the featured creatures and their babies as the last line declares: “Baby, I love you from A to Z!” The verse is standard fare and appropriately sentimental. The art is cartoony-cute and populated by suitably loving critters on solid backgrounds. Hearts accent each scene, but the theme of the project is never in any doubt.
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2095-6
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
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