Genial starter nonfiction.
Panels activated by sliding tabs introduce youngsters to the human body.
The information is presented in matter-of-fact narration and captioned, graphically simple art featuring rounded lines, oversized heads and eyes, and muted colors. The sliding panels reveal new scenes on both sides of the page, and arrows on the large tabs indicate the direction to pull them (some tabs work left and right and others up and down). Some of the tabs show only slight changes (a white child reaches for a teddy bear, demonstrating how arms and hands work), while others are much more surprising (a different white child runs to a door and on the other side of the panel is shown sitting on the toilet). The double-page spreads employ broad themes as organizers, such as “Your Body,” “Eating Right,” and “Taking Care of Your Body.” Much of the content is focused on the outside of the body, but one panel does slide to reveal an X-ray image of a skeleton. While there are a few dark brown and amber skin tones, it is mostly white children who appear in the pages to demonstrate body movements, self-care, visiting the doctor, senses, and feelings. The companion volume, Baby Animals, employs the same style of sliding panels to introduce youngsters to little critters and their parents, from baboons to penguins.
Genial starter nonfiction. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-2-40800-850-5
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Youngsters will enjoy the playful art if they aren’t overwhelmed by the busy design.
From Ant to Zorapteran, each page presents a variety of insects, both commonplace and obscure.
Narrator Mrs. Peanuckle, who enjoys sharing her likes and dislikes and writing about herself in the third person, has penned one to two sentences of quirky description and interesting facts for each insect representing a different letter of the alphabet: “L is for Ladybug / The loveliest of insects. They help Mrs. Peanuckle by eating the bugs on her roses!” The text often takes up most of the page and employs a different typeface per word, thus making the pages difficult to scan—often the featured letter of the alphabet merges with the name of the insect (“Inchworm” looks as though it has two I’s, for example). Ford’s lively insects skitter around the words in luminescent color; as with any effective insect book, there’s just enough detail to provoke interest without an ick-response. The companion book, Mrs. Peanuckle’s Flower Alphabet, presents blooms from Aster to Zinnia, with the same formula but with a more winsome approach to the art; here many of the flowers sport smiling faces in the same bold color palette.
Youngsters will enjoy the playful art if they aren’t overwhelmed by the busy design. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62336-939-2
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Rodale Kids
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A serene and lovely presentation.
Carter’s latest stop on his ongoing seasonal cycle offers pop-up pumpkins, corn, and other signs of mellow fruitfulness.
As in his Winter (2015) and Spring (2016), each opening presents a small, flat landscape dominated by a central pop-up, with scattered specimens of flora, insects, birds, and other wildlife—with identifying labels for most everything, even clouds—and leading questions below: “Who nibbles the water plants?” “Who hunts from the sky?” The setting is unspecified but has the look of the western United States, with glimpses of bison, California chicory, sockeye salmon, and a ringtail visible in various scenes, and a house visible in the distance that looks North American or European. Persimmons and pomegranates on the final spread broaden the general sense of locale a bit, though, and only early mention of “a chill in the air” pins the narrative to particular latitudes. Barred clouds (“altocumulus”) bloom on a soft dying day before the final observation that “Winter is coming; it’s time to harvest.”
A serene and lovely presentation. (Informational pop-up picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2535-7
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
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