Art/architectural historian and former Montessori teacher Lane offers a succession of two-page spreads highlighting a dozen shapes (circle, semi circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle, sphere, ellipsoid, cube, cuboid, pyramid and cylinder) that young children can discover in photos and illustrations of a dozen notable structures around the world. The cover pictures I.M. Pei’s iconic Pyramid entrance to the Louvre, and inside, images (sometime slightly blurred) of each structure are paired with very simple line diagrams of their corresponding shapes, the names of the shapes and a brief descriptive sentence about the structure. Each entry ends with a question. For example, when referring to the Hypostyle Hall in the Temple at Karnak in Egypt, the text asks, “How would you feel if you walked through these massive cylinders?” The publisher’s notes specify that this book was designed for the young, perhaps explaining the exceptionally brief backmatter, which simply presents thumbnails of the buildings with their names and locations. Worthy but decidedly workmanlike. (Picture book. 3-6)
