The vivid richness and fine visual detail will bring young readers back again and again.
Fishes, feathers, birds, bugs, vegetables, fruits, and flowers populate this homage to seven colors.
This French import begins with red, as spectrums often do. A handful of floating dots in slightly different sizes and slightly different red shades sits across from a cardinal and a red maple leaf. Next, the matte white background hosts a juicy variety of red creatures and fruits, spaced companionably across the spread: raspberries, chili pepper, pomegranate, crayfish, ladybug. Orange gets the same treatment, then yellow, blue, green, black, and white. (No purple, which is fine; no brown, which is sad.) Blue, yellow, and green vary the most in shade, value, and intensity—the blue dots range from green-blue to dark indigo, the greens from tertiary lime to dark, low-saturation spruce. While the other colors should show a wider range, every spread is gorgeous, tempting and entrancing, evoking delicious tastes and nature scents. A small heap of turmeric looks like powder on the page; the skin of a Gala apple has the exquisite lines and glinting dots of a real Gala, darkening at the apple’s curves. Subtle puckers and folds paint an orange that could be plucked off the page and peeled. A gray pebble in the “white” section (this part has the only black background, for offset) could be just dried from the beach.
The vivid richness and fine visual detail will bring young readers back again and again. (Picture book. 2-6)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64896-014-7
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A clever conceit but a bland execution.
In this minimalist Australian import, readers are encouraged to guess animals based on select written and visual clues.
On each recto, readers see the hindquarters of an animal, and three simple clues ask them to guess what kind of animal they may belong to. “I have long furry ears and a small nose. / I live in a burrow in the ground. / I have a white fluffy tail. / I AM A….” The splashy watercolor rear legs and tail are ambiguous enough that they may have readers second-guessing the obvious answer. Turning the page, however, readers discover both the well-defined front half of the animal and the animal’s name: “RABBIT.” Canty uses stock 19th-century animal illustrations layered with watercolor enhancements, creating a somber yet surprising tone. Two tailless animals, a frog and human readers, are included in the roster, making the “tails” referenced in the title symbolic rather than literal. Two red herrings, the image of a mouse between the clues for and image of an elephant and (inexplicably) a squirrel leading to a giraffe, fall flat, with no other cues to young readers that they are jokes. The quirky illustrations, earthy colors, and lack of exhibited enthusiasm will make this book’s audience a niche one. There is no backmatter.
A clever conceit but a bland execution. (Informational picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0033-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Adults will do better skipping the book and talking with their children.
Social-equity themes are presented to children in ABC format.
Terms related to intersectional inequality, such as “class,” “gender,” “privilege,” “oppression,” “race,” and “sex,” as well as other topics important to social justice such as “feminism,” “human being,” “immigration,” “justice,” “kindness,” “multicultural,” “transgender,” “understanding,” and “value” are named and explained. There are 26 in all, one for each letter of the alphabet. Colorful two-page spreads with kid-friendly illustrations present each term. First the term is described: “Belief is when you are confident something exists even if you can’t see it. Lots of different beliefs fill the world, and no single belief is right for everyone.” On the facing page it concludes: “B is for BELIEF / Everyone has different beliefs.” It is hard to see who the intended audience for this little board book is. Babies and toddlers are busy learning the names for their body parts, familiar objects around them, and perhaps some basic feelings like happy, hungry, and sad; slightly older preschoolers will probably be bewildered by explanations such as: “A value is an expression of how to live a belief. A value can serve as a guide for how you behave around other human beings. / V is for VALUE / Live your beliefs out loud.”
Adults will do better skipping the book and talking with their children. (Board book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78603-742-8
Page Count: 52
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
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