High marks for concept, art, design, and sheer visual energy.
In a seasonal round, crowds of bright flora and fauna ingeniously constructed from geometric forms pose playful challenges in shape and color recognition.
Two sturdy, toothed wheels turning under die-cut windows on either the right or the left of each big spread are the engines that drive this entry in the Turn Seek Find series. They invite viewers to choose one of four grayscale figures—a robin (this is a French import), a fir tree, a squirrel, or a snowflake in “Winter,” for instance—and one of four colors and then to spot the selection amid a seasonally themed riot of stylized shapes and saturated hues. Along with using evocative color schemes for the four seasons, Giordano fits his semi-abstract figures and their compositions together in such harmonious ways that the seek-and-find game may well take a back seat to the simple pleasures of just poring over each scene, letting lines and transitions guide exploratory eyes to fresh discoveries, seeing the plants and animals (there are many more than the quartet offered on each wheel), and basking in the golden glow of “ Fall” or shivering deliciously in the chilly blues of “Winter.” Still, the game is absorbing too, and it’s capped at the end with elements of the previous pictures recast in a joyous whirl of “All Year Round,” with apples, flies, clover, and frogs to spot. “Hooray, you found them! Now turn the wheels to play again!” The invitation will find no lack of takers.
High marks for concept, art, design, and sheer visual energy. (Novelty board book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-2-40800-789-8
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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
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