A classy, well-turned piece of work.
American English, as a language, has much to answer for, not least being irregular plural nouns—foot, feet; mouse, mice; goose, geese—but this cut-above counting book explicates them by wedding the numbers two to ten to plurals while the number one introduces the singular of each.
It is a clever conception—akin to the work of Laura Vaccaro Seeger—and executed with an elegant design. A die-cut window displays one of the group that will be discovered on the subsequent page: one snowman, five snowmen; one die, six dice; one ox, seven oxen. In each group illustration, the appropriate numeral is worked into the art (a coal-button 5 on the front of one of the snowmen; an 8-ball tattoo on one of the octopi). The illustrations are as deceptively simple as Thomas the Tank Engine and as elemental in their engagement. Maloney and Zekauskas add little touches—a small plane scooting by on each page, amusing asides within the artwork, a cumulative gathering of what went before on the verso of the die-cut page that serve as a reminder of the progression of numbers—to further beguile young readers.
A classy, well-turned piece of work. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25446-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat.
Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
A sweet and subtle book on sharing.
Rudy’s pink sweater is missing. Readers are invited to follow him as he searches for the sweater.
Rudy is a blue creature with a piggy snout, bunny ears, a thin, tufted tail, and a distraught look on his face. His beloved pink sweater is gone. “It was a bit too small and showed his belly button. But it was his favorite.” Where could it be? In a search that doubles as a countdown from 10 to one, Rudy makes his way through the different rooms of the house—top to bottom, inside and outside. As readers open the wardrobe door, “TEN tumbling cats” provide the first hint as to the sweater’s whereabouts. Following the pink yarn that runs across the pages, readers encounter some surprising creatures in each location—including a crocodile sitting in an outhouse busily knitting—as well as flaps to open and die cuts to peek through. Just as he’s about to give up hope—someone must’ve taken it, but “who would love wearing it as much as he did?”—the answer is revealed: “Trudy! His number ONE sister. The sweater fit her perfectly.” And, as is the nature of stories with a happy ending, Rudy gets a new sweater that fits him, from the knitting crocodile, of course. Plot, interactivity, vocabulary, and counting all contribute in making this an engaging book for the upper edge of the board-book range.
A sweet and subtle book on sharing. (Board book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3679-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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