The tactile elements and factoids will make it high appeal for curious readers, who will overlook its imperfections.
In this nonfiction board book, animal facts are paired with touchable images.
From the creepy crawly to the slimy, each animal gets its own double-page spread complete with an up-close, detailed stock photograph. A touch-and-feel element is built into each animal’s image so that readers have a chance to interact with the fuzz on a tarantula and the velvety skin of a bat’s wing, for example. These touchable elements are largely successful. The actual stickiness of the frog’s tongue will impress little readers, and the subtle scales on the chameleon are well-integrated with the image. Others are less successful, however. The skunk’s tail is a swoop of plain white fuzz, and the tarantula’s “hairs,” while fun to touch, obscure the details underneath. The green-skinned PBS Kids characters accompany the animal images. The text itself is just the facts, rare for a board book. It introduces some great vocabulary, like predator and musk, but misses the opportunity to use the word nocturnal in both the bat and skunk entries. The book also assumes some prerequisite knowledge: Mammal is not explained, for example. This, coupled with the level of information shared, makes it an odd match for the board-book format.
The tactile elements and factoids will make it high appeal for curious readers, who will overlook its imperfections. (Board book. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68052-950-0
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Cottage Door Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Caregivers eager to expose their children to fine art have better choices than this.
From “Apple” to “Zebra,” an alphabet of images drawn from museum paintings.
In an exhibition that recalls similar, if less parochial, ABCs from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (My First ABC, 2009) and several other institutions, Hahn presents a Eurocentric selection of paintings or details to illustrate for each letter a common item or animal—all printed with reasonable clarity and captioned with identifying names, titles, and dates. She then proceeds to saddle each with an inane question (“What sounds do you think this cat is making?” “Where can you find ice?”) and a clumsily written couplet that unnecessarily repeats the artist’s name: “Flowers are plants that blossom and bloom. / Frédéric Bazille painted them filling up this room!” She also sometimes contradicts the visuals, claiming that the horses in a Franz Marc painting entitled “Two Horses, 1912” are ponies, apparently to populate the P page. Moreover, her “X” is an actual X-ray of a Jean-Honoré Fragonard, showing that the artist repainted his subject’s face…interesting but not quite in keeping with the familiar subjects chosen for the other letters.
Caregivers eager to expose their children to fine art have better choices than this. (Informational picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5107-4938-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Captivating—and not a bit terrifying.
Catering to young scientists, naturalists, and Shark Week fans–to-be, this visually arresting volume presents a good deal of information in easily digested bites.
Like others in the Block Books series, this book feels both compact and massive. When closed, it is 5.5 inches across, 6.5 inches tall, and nearly 2 inches thick, weighty and solid, with stiff cardboard pages that boast creative die cuts and numerous fold-out three- and four-panel tableaux. While it’s possible it’s not the only book with a dorsal fin, it certainly must be among the best. The multiracial cast of aquarium visitors includes a Sikh man with his kids and a man of color who uses a wheelchair; there they discover the dramatic degree of variations among sharks. The book begins with a trip to a shark exhibit, complete with a megalodon jaw. The text points out that there are over 400 known types of sharks alive today, then introduces 18 examples, including huge whale sharks, tiny pocket sharks, and stealthy, well-camouflaged wobbegongs. Reef sharks prowl the warm waters of the surface, while sand tiger sharks explore shipwrecks on the ocean floor. Bioluminescent catsharks reside at the bottom of an inky black flap that folds down, signifying the deepest ocean depths, where no sunlight penetrates. Great whites get star treatment with four consecutive two-page spreads; their teeth and appetite impress but don’t horrify. The book does a wonderful job of highlighting the interconnectedness of species and the importance of environmental stewardship.
Captivating—and not a bit terrifying. (Board book. 3-5)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4119-7
Page Count: 84
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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