Neatly bridges the gap between board books and more complex seek-and-find titles.
From the prolific board-book creator, a picture book that teaches young preschoolers to notice details.
Two double-page spreads introduce each section’s theme. A third (and in one case fourth) spread is devoted to a specific object: pigs for the farm, seahorses for the sea, and airplanes for things that go. Nine animals appear on the first spread of the baby-animals section before spreads focusing on giraffes and elephants. The seek-and-find activities grow increasingly challenging, as the differences become ever more subtle. Instructions set in white text within one large, colored dot on each spread begin “looky looky.” Clues in four smaller dots per spread point to sometimes silly features in the illustrations, such as a pig with a mustache. Occasional clues challenge emergent readers to find words printed on the page. The generous square format allows plenty of room for details in the pictures to stand out. Animals and objects outlined in Magsamen’s trademark applique-style faux stitching are clear against solid backgrounds. Cloying and clunky rhymes that open and close the book come across as unnecessary filler given the self-explanatory nature of the seek-and-find activity.
Neatly bridges the gap between board books and more complex seek-and-find titles. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72821-408-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Only gnashnabs would cavil at this eximious display of lexicographical largesse.
More labial lollipops for logomanes and sesquipedalian proto-savants.
The creators of Big Words for Little Geniuses (2017) and Cuddly Critters for Little Geniuses (2018) follow up with another ABC of extravagant expressions. It begins with “ailurophile” (“How furry sweet!” Puns, yet), ends with “zoanthropy,” and in between highlights “bioluminescent,” growls at a grouchy “gnashnab,” and collects a “knickknackatory” of like locutions. A list of 14 additional words is appended in a second, partial alphabet. Each entry comes with a phonetic version, a one- or two-sentence verbal definition, and, from Pan, a visual one with a big letter and very simple, broadly brushed figures. Lending an ear to aural pleasures, the authors borrow from German to include “fünfundfünfzig” in the main list and add a separate list of a dozen more words at the end likewise deemed sheer fun to say. Will any of these rare, generally polysyllabic leviathans find their way into idiolects or casual conversations? Unlikely, alas—but sounding them out and realizing that even the silliest have at least putative meanings sheds liminal light on language’s glittering word hoards.
Only gnashnabs would cavil at this eximious display of lexicographical largesse. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-53445-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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
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