A useful, sturdy conversation starter between caregivers and children.
Sweet pastel colors and cheery images across five double-page spreads introduce various animal habitats to young children.
A “sheep and her lamb live on the farm”; a “whale and her calf live in the ocean.” The other animal mother-and-child pairs are a penguin and chick, dog and puppy, and kangaroo and joey. Unfortunately, the Antarctic birds are pictured next to an igloo, but otherwise both the specialized name for animal young and habitat are introduced neatly. Companion title Noisy World introduces noises. Three of the sounds are from animals (lions, a crocodile and birds), while two are from machines (a car and a train). Here, the creators might have been more successful working this concept into two books—one about animal sounds and the other surveying transportation sounds. In either case, flaws will not matter to very young children, who will be attracted to the sunny pictures and jolly characters. There is nothing threatening about the roaring lions or snapping crocodile. Smart adults will use these books to ask questions: What color is the monkey? How many birds are cheeping? As with other titles in the Tiny Touch series, the back blurb touts the “bumpy textured pages that make it a tactile and interactive experience,” but the texture is so subtle, it is almost nonexistent.
A useful, sturdy conversation starter between caregivers and children. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)Pub Date: March 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0023-4
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come.
Little Blue Truck and his pal Toad meet friends old and new on a springtime drive through the country.
This lift-the-flap, interactive entry in the popular Little Blue Truck series lacks the narrative strength and valuable life lessons of the original Little Blue Truck (2008) and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (2009). Both of those books, published for preschoolers rather than toddlers, featured rich storylines, dramatic, kinetic illustrations, and simple but valuable life lessons—the folly of taking oneself too seriously, the importance of friends, and the virtue of taking turns, for example. At about half the length and with half as much text as the aforementioned titles, this volume is a much quicker read. Less a story than a vernal celebration, the book depicts a bucolic drive through farmland and encounters with various animals and their young along the way. Beautifully rendered two-page tableaux teem with butterflies, blossoms, and vibrant pastel, springtime colors. Little Blue greets a sheep standing in the door of a barn: “Yoo-hoo, Sheep! / Beep-beep! / What’s new?” Folding back the durable, card-stock flap reveals the barn’s interior and an adorable set of twin lambs. Encounters with a duck and nine ducklings, a cow with a calf, a pig with 10 (!) piglets, a family of bunnies, and a chicken with a freshly hatched chick provide ample opportunity for counting and vocabulary work.
Uncomplicated fun that sets readers up for the earlier, more-complicated books to come. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-544-93809-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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