Another cute book of animal facts—but far from a must-have.
This board book is a tactile, factoid-filled visit with various jungle animals.
Mazas’ animal facts are paired with Roy’s clean and inviting illustrations. Some featured animals, such as the iguana, are given full two-page layouts with multiple illustrations and an up-close image while other pages include multiple animals and facts shared together. There is no apparent pattern to how the animals are featured or why some receive a more in-depth treatment. Despite this, young readers will get a kick out of the information included, especially the note about sloth toilet habits. Some of the up-close images incorporate both an inset texture to feel and labeled body parts. These are the most interesting illustrations in the book even though the tactile components don’t add much informational value. The boa constrictor works well with its touchable, bumpy scales. Overall, the book suffers from a lack of clear direction: Is it an organized, up-close look at jungle animals? A picture dictionary of assorted animals, as the last two pages featuring seven animals and a few textures suggest? A lift-the-flap book (there’s only one)? The muddiness means an unclear readership. The touch-and-feel aspect points to younger readers, but the content hits a little older. Overall, the book has high appeal for animal lovers who get a kick out of related details.
Another cute book of animal facts—but far from a must-have. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-2-40801-284-7
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Caregivers eager to expose their children to fine art have better choices than this.
From “Apple” to “Zebra,” an alphabet of images drawn from museum paintings.
In an exhibition that recalls similar, if less parochial, ABCs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (My First ABC, 2009) and several other institutions, Hahn presents a Eurocentric selection of paintings or details to illustrate for each letter a common item or animal—all printed with reasonable clarity and captioned with identifying names, titles, and dates. She then proceeds to saddle each with an inane question (“What sounds do you think this cat is making?” “Where can you find ice?”) and a clumsily written couplet that unnecessarily repeats the artist’s name: “Flowers are plants that blossom and bloom. / Frédéric Bazille painted them filling up this room!” She also sometimes contradicts the visuals, claiming that the horses in a Franz Marc painting entitled “Two Horses, 1912” are ponies, apparently to populate the P page. Moreover, her “X” is an actual X-ray of a Jean-Honoré Fragonard, showing that the artist repainted his subject’s face…interesting but not quite in keeping with the familiar subjects chosen for the other letters.
Caregivers eager to expose their children to fine art have better choices than this. (Informational picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5107-4938-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Satisfying, engaging, and sure to entertain the toddlers at whom it is aimed.
Nine basic shapes in vivid shifting colors are stacked on pages in various permutations.
This visually striking and carefully assembled collection of shapes, which seems to have been inspired by an Eric Carle aesthetic, invites young children to put their observation, categorization, problem-solving, color, and spatial-relation skills to work, pondering shapes and compositions—and even learning about prepositions in the process. As the text says, “a stack of shapes can make you think and wonder what you see.” First, readers see a circle under a strawberry (the red diamond with a leafy, green top and yellow-triangle seeds) and then that berry over a green square. The orange oval made to look like a fish is added to a stack of three shapes to become “yellow over diamond under guppy over green.” And so on. The metamorphosis of many of these simple shapes into animals (a yellow circle becomes a lion; a green square, a frog; a pink heart, a pig; a yellow diamond, a chicken) will surprise and delight children. Questions are directed at readers: Is a square with two round eyes and semicircle feet a “frog or square or green?” Why, all of the above! The text possesses a pleasing rhythm and subtle rhymes, positively begging to be read aloud: “circle next to berry / square by bear by sweet // blue up high / pig down low / yellow in between.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Satisfying, engaging, and sure to entertain the toddlers at whom it is aimed. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-79720-508-3
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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