A baby and a dog discover gravity in this appealingly illustrated, developmentally inappropriate book.
This and Baby Loves Coding are the latest offerings in the Baby Loves Science series of board books. These cute but overzealous attempts to create STEM students from children fresh from the womb seem aimed more at pushy parents than at doctoral candidates in diapers. Previous volumes have featured toddlers who love quarks, aerospace engineering, thermodynamics, and quantum physics. The contents of this book have been vetted for scientific accuracy; one wonders whether the creative team also vetted the practical value of teaching preschoolers to parrot answers to questions they’re ill-equipped to pose or indeed comprehend: “Why does a noodle fall? / Because of gravity!” Babies will have observed the central action this book presents—the fall to the floor of some tidbit from their highchair trays—over and over, but does “When Baby drops something, the earth pulls it down” adequately describe the phenomenon? For a toddler audience, even simple explanations of the science in this book require more exposition than board books allow and raise more questions than they answer. “Everything is made of matter. The amount of matter is called mass.” OK, what is matter? And if gravity makes spaghetti fall to Earth, why does it make the moon go around it? The baby has brown skin and tightly curled black hair.
Good intentions gone wrong. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58089-836-2
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: June 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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This noisy board book is designed to thrill tots fascinated with all things construction.
A tactile backhoe digger is center stage on each of the five cutout pages, complete with flaps. Brief rhyming text describes the machine’s actions as it works throughout the day. Animal characters engaged in manual labor or operating other machinery—a bulldozer, crane, road roller, and dump truck—describe more work that goes on at a construction site in small speech bubbles. Finding the mouse in every scene adds to the fun. On each page, a little bird sporting a hard hat invites young builders to press various parts of the silicone digger to activate a range of distinct sounds. The digger’s track pad sounds different from the sound of its arm moving dirt. The problem is that the digger itself is passive; the track pad and arm don’t actually move. The machine stays in the same place on every spread. The caution light beeps but doesn’t light up. Savvy kids will quickly realize that all the sounds are accessible from the first spread without having to turn the pages. The sound is the most engaging part of the book, but with only five sounds, this feature won’t hold most youngsters’ attention for long.
A disappointing twist on a popular theme. More gimmick than engaging. (Novelty board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68010-684-8
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION
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Ten babies in 10 countries greet friends in almost 10 languages.
Countries of origin are subtly identified. For example, on the first spread, NYC is emblazoned on a blond, white baby’s hat as well as a brown baby’s scoot-car taxi. On the next spread, “Mexico City” is written on a light brown toddler’s bike. A flag in each illustration provides another hint. However, the languages are not named, so on first reading, the fine but important differences between Spanish and Portuguese are easily missed. This is also a problem on pages showing transliterated Arabic from Cairo and Afrikaans from Cape Town. Similarly, Chinese and Japanese are transliterated, without use of traditional hànzì or kanji characters. British English is treated as a separate language, though it is, after all, still English. French (spoken by 67 million people) is included, but German, Russian, and Hindi (spoken by 101 million, 145 million, and 370 million respectively) are not. English translations are included in a slightly smaller font. This world survey comes full circle, ending in San Francisco with a beige baby sleeping in an equally beige parent’s arms. The message of diversity is reinforced by images of three babies—one light brown, one medium brown, one white—in windows on the final spread.
A cheery board book to reinforce the oneness of babykind. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-938093-87-6
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Duo Press
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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