The animal cast of this 19th-century counting rhyme has been subject to many variations; here, Vojtech (Tough Beginnings: How Baby Animals Survive, 2001, etc.) chooses a set and arranges them on oversized pages in intimate gatherings of smiling, smoothly painted single-parent families. She places them into an idyllic meadow scattered with appropriate numbers of bugs, flowers, and other items for enthusiastic young counters to enumerate. There’s no musical arrangement for the odd parent who doesn’t already know the tune, and despite mother beaver’s order to “beave,” her ten offspring are shown asleep—but children will find this rendition easier on the eye than the frantic Langstaff/Rojankovsky edition (1957, 1985), or Ezra Jack Keats’s self-consciously arty version (1971). (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7358-1596-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
A brief, rhythmic text combines lullaby with concept book. An African-American baby and parent are shown in the illustrations. “Wrap your arms around me, make a circle, hold me tight. I’ll take you spinning through the air, as daylight turns to night.” The cuddled child is in pajamas, the moon is “like a night-light hanging high,” while the stars and child’s face and features are more examples of the lovingly conveyed main theme. The illustrations, portholes in the center of increasingly darker borders as night descends, show the parent and child with round objects—a goldfish bowl, a round mirror, etc. Engel (The Shelf- Paper Jungle, 1994, etc.) uses watercolors to portray whimsical moonscapes and a starry sky in pleasing and memorable ways. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7614-5040-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hindley (The Best Thing about a Puppy, 1998, etc.) offers an open invitation to toddlers to get physical in this joyful celebration of body parts from head to toe. In simple, buoyant verse, and illustrated with equal expression, accessibility, and incitement, Hindley introduces the ears, eyes, the nose, toes, fingers, hands, arms, mouths, lips, necks, and knees. Hide behind those fingers, wiggle and waggle those toes, “legs are for leaping and jumping and dancing. Legs are for kicking and skipping and hopping. Legs are for stomping and suddenly’stopping.” The pleasure of movement flows from these pages, and the pleasure of company: “And I’ll tell you again—Kisses are little, smiles are wide—A hug is a bundle with you inside.” (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0440-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
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