FRANKIE'S MAGICAL DAY

A tot spends a day with her parents.

Frankie is a little girl in a big world. This oversized board book introduces little readers to that world and, by extension, perhaps to their own. As Frankie explores double-page spreads of her house, backyard, neighborhood, and more, little ones are encouraged to look for specific items, such as the “(friendly) ghost” in the attic and the colored pencils at the grocery store, in each scene. Objects are labeled in small, lowercase serif type while the book’s narrative is delivered in a bold, uppercase, and multicolored sans-serif. The large pages contain a lot of small details, and little ones won’t be able to resist leaning in close to absorb the colorful scenery. Whimsical touches include a masked “bunny bandit” in the backyard and a sneaky kitty who is represented mostly by the parts that peek out. The book works well as a vocabulary expander, but it may well be just as effective in the back seat on long car rides. Purple-haired Frankie is biracial, with a pale-skinned, pink-haired mom and brown-skinned, black-haired dad. Her world is a comfortable, multicultural, suburban one of stand-alone houses and tidy streets.

An engaging vocabulary booster that repays careful examination.