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I HEAR A PICKLE

Name: I HEAR A PICKLE
Author: Rachel Isadora
ISBN: 978-0-399-16049-3

AND SMELL, SEE, TOUCH, & TASTE IT, TOO!

by Rachel Isadora ; illustrated by Rachel Isadora ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 12, 2016

Teachers, make sure this is on your shelves—it’s a great read-aloud, an easy read for beginning readers, and a model for...

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Only the last page features the titular pickle—the rest of the book is a tribute to the five senses that will resonate with young readers.

Highlighting sensory experiences that will be familiar to the majority of readers, Isadora focuses on one sense at a time, progressing from hearing to smelling, seeing, touching, and tasting (readers can track their progress with a list in the upper right of each spread); she devotes three spreads to all but taste, which gets only two. An ethnically diverse group of young children tell readers what they sense—or don’t—in simple declarative sentences that are sometimes embellished by the kids’ thoughts: “I don’t smell. I have a cold.” “I don’t see the words in my book. / I wear my glasses. I see the words!” “I touch the egg. Oops!” While one girl enjoys PB&J, another says, “I taste a jelly sandwich. I’m allergic to peanuts.” Isadora’s ink-and-watercolor artwork uses vignettes and white backgrounds to bring each sense to the forefront, and children of most skin and hair colors will find at least one face like their own in these pages (glasses are the only depicted disability, however).

Teachers, make sure this is on your shelves—it’s a great read-aloud, an easy read for beginning readers, and a model for student books. (Picture/concept book. 3-6)

Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-399-16049-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books

Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING

- BOOK REVIEW
DO I HAVE TO WEAR A COAT?
by Rachel Isadora ; illustrated by Rachel Isadora

- BOOK REVIEW
MY DOG LAUGHS
by Rachel Isadora ; illustrated by Rachel Isadora

- BOOK REVIEW
I JUST WANT TO SAY GOOD NIGHT
by Rachel Isadora ; illustrated by Rachel Isadora

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ONE FAMILY

by George Shannon ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 26, 2015

A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts.

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A playful counting book also acts as a celebration of family and human diversity.

Shannon’s text is delivered in spare, rhythmic, lilting verse that begins with one and counts up to 10 as it presents different groupings of things and people in individual families, always emphasizing the unitary nature of each combination. “One is six. One line of laundry. One butterfly’s legs. One family.” Gomez’s richly colored pictures clarify and expand on all that the text lists: For “six,” a picture showing six members of a multigenerational family of color includes a line of laundry with six items hanging from it outside of their windows, as well as the painting of a six-legged butterfly that a child in the family is creating. While text never directs the art to depict diverse individuals and family constellations, Gomez does just this in her illustrations. Interracial families are included, as are depictions of men with their arms around each other, and a Sikh man wearing a turban. This inclusive spirit supports the text’s culminating assertion that “One is one and everyone. One earth. One world. One family.”

A visually striking, engaging picture book that sends the message that everyone counts. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pub Date: May 26, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-374-30003-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
TURKEY TOT
by George Shannon ; illustrated by Jennifer K. Mann

- BOOK REVIEW
A VERY WITCHY SPELLING BEE
by George Shannon ; illustrated by Mark Fearing

- BOOK REVIEW
WHO PUT THE COOKIES IN THE COOKIE JAR?
by George Shannon ; illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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PIRATES DON'T TAKE BATHS

by John Segal and illustrated by John Segal ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2011

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Echoes of Runaway Bunny color this exchange between a bath-averse piglet and his patient mother. Using a strategy that would probably be a nonstarter in real life, the mother deflects her stubborn offspring’s string of bath-free occupational conceits with appeals to reason: “Pirates NEVER EVER take baths!” “Pirates don’t get seasick either. But you do.” “Yeesh. I’m an astronaut, okay?” “Well, it is hard to bathe in zero gravity. It’s hard to poop and pee in zero gravity too!” And so on, until Mom’s enticing promise of treasure in the deep sea persuades her little Treasure Hunter to take a dive. Chunky figures surrounded by lots of bright white space in Segal’s minimally detailed watercolors keep the visuals as simple as the plotline. The language isn’t quite as basic, though, and as it rendered entirely in dialogue—Mother Pig’s lines are italicized—adult readers will have to work hard at their vocal characterizations for it to make any sense. Moreover, younger audiences (any audiences, come to that) may wonder what the piggy’s watery closing “EUREKA!!!” is all about too. Not particularly persuasive, but this might coax a few young porkers to get their trotters into the tub. (Picture book. 4-6)