In both form and content, these two board books beautifully represent baby and grown-up bonding, whether human or animal....
This split-level reading experience is a cozy delight.
Readers match animal babies pictured on each page of a smaller book (approximately 3 inches square) attached and nestled in the left-hand corner of the full-size board book, which features the corresponding parent animals. The simple text provides clues as to whose baby monkey, elephant, crocodile or elephant is whose. “You reach high for a treat,” reads the larger giraffe page. The smaller double-page spread featuring the giraffe calf answers, “You are my baby, little giraffe,” as the little one reaches for leaves held in its parent’s mouth. Siminovich, of the Petit Collage decorating line, uses her graphic, clean collage style to create appealingly simple parent-and-baby duos assembled with warmly colored and textured papers on delicately patterned backgrounds. You Are My Baby: Farm uses the same format to lovely effect with barnyard animals. Here, the vocabulary-building text includes the specific names for baby animals, such as piglet, calf, chick, lamb and foal. While grown-ups may want to practice manipulating the setup in advance, babies will enjoy the multiple opportunities to grab pages.
In both form and content, these two board books beautifully represent baby and grown-up bonding, whether human or animal. (Board book. 6 mos.-2)Pub Date: March 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4521-0642-7
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2013
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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