Consider this an unessential novelty unless sturdy books with nonanimal sounds are sought.
Recorder, piano, violin, guitars, drums, and xylophone are played by a pig, elephant, cat, zebras, bears, and mice respectively, while chips embedded in each page play an appropriate snippet of music.
Toddlers and most of their parents won't easily recognize all the tunes. The violin snippet is attributed to Brahms; the piano tune is an obscure section of Mozart's “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”; music for the xylophone and drums are credited to Gallimard Jeunesse, the original French publisher. The book demands some significant leaps of faith. How exactly an elephant can sit at a piano and press the keys isn't at all clear, for instance. All the action takes place in a circus setting, though the tunes are not normally associated with circus acts, nor will toddlers recognize the venue from the illustrations. The cartoonish animals bear little resemblance to any real animal, and the fiddle-playing cat is identifiable only through the text. None of this is likely to bother toddlers, who will quickly find the sound buttons embedded in each board page and delight in pressing them repeatedly to charm (or annoy) their adult companions—who will barely have time to read the brief text before their children are ready to move on to the next noise.
Consider this an unessential novelty unless sturdy books with nonanimal sounds are sought. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-338-03261-1
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The back-of-the-book blurb declares that it’s “an awesome game”; just saying something’s awesome doesn't make it so.
A barnyard seek-and-find for toddlers.
Each busy double-page spread hides a number of animals—none of whom bear much resemblance to their namesakes in the real world. Instead, they are stylized, cutesy collage creations outlined in stitch patterns, resembling stuffed patchwork animals more than anything else. Although a counting book that goes from one through five should be simple, this one isn’t, skipping from “three” to “five” abruptly: “You found Cow, and Pig, and Bunny! / They knew they could count on you! / How many friends are hiding now? / FOUR?...No, FIVE! It's true!” Skipping over “four” will only confuse young children, who are already challenged by the concept of one-to-one correspondence. The back of the book tells readers they will be helping Silly Stitches with the counting, and it’s unclear which animal—if any—is Silly Stitches, since that character is never specified within the text. These weaknesses are repeated in the second Silly Stitches book, Guess Who's Hiding in the Forest, published simultaneously. Tactile elements, glitter, and shiny highlights are not enough to redeem either title.
The back-of-the-book blurb declares that it’s “an awesome game”; just saying something’s awesome doesn't make it so. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4867-0615-0
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Fans of Baby Loves to Rock will get a kick out of this infant’s moves, but the humor is still too adult to pretend this is a...
A baby and a bevy of animals demonstrate a variety of dance moves.
With one sentence per page, the text is a mix of puns, jokes and rhymes that, while clever, will likely go over the heads of core board-book readers: “The apes like to orang-o-tango / and the sloths like to slow dance. // The kangaroos can boogaloo, / and the flamingo can flamenco.” Each critter mentioned is depicted in bright colors dancing in their requisite style against bold backgrounds. The goofy cartoons are not as successful as those in Kirwan’s earlier offering, Baby Loves to Rock (2013), but the tap-dancing woodpecker and the toucan doing the cancan are delightful standouts. As in the first title, a double-page spread appears at three different junctures, asking a variation of “But who loves to boogie?” in a graphic, bold display type floating in a disco setting. On the last two pages, readers learn that “Baby loves to boogie, woogie, / BOOGIE!” and three images of a Caucasian baby, likely the same child in as the companion title, bop across the page.
Fans of Baby Loves to Rock will get a kick out of this infant’s moves, but the humor is still too adult to pretend this is a book for actual babies. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: June 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4814-0383-2
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
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