A playful approach to teaching kids the alphabet.
Twenty-six Alphababies prepare for bedtime.
Putting A, B, C, and 23 other little ones to bed for the night is a daunting task. The bespectacled Alpha Mom needs a megaphone to call the kids to attention: “TIME FOR BED!” From there, in a style reminiscent of Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), illustrated by Lois Ehlert, each child romps, rolls, and races to bed. Despite lights out, the kids have an “alpha pillow fight!” after which Mommy and Daddy finally get them to sleep with a kiss and one last tuck into bed. This spirited family is full of personality, each child with a different stuffed animal and pajama set and a unique journey to bedtime. The illustrations capture the bustle of a house bursting with children, from the chaos of the dinner table and children slipping on carpets and overturning houseplants in their haste to a series of bathtubs full of activity. A particularly effective string of illustrations shows the progression of lights out, from the line of light from a cracked bedroom door through the pillow fight and right into the appearance of two perturbed parents. The rhyming text bounces along, an easy read-aloud, with rich vocabulary like impish, jazzy, and scramble making for a fun, silly, relatable read with detailed, appealing illustrations. The Alphababies are diverse in skin tone, their mother is brown-skinned, and their father is light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A playful approach to teaching kids the alphabet. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-399-16841-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Ideal for any community where children count.
A difficult concept is simply and strikingly illustrated for the very youngest members of any community, with a counting exercise to boot.
From the opening invitation, “Living in community, / it's a lot of FUN! / Lets count the ways. / Lets start with ONE,” Nagaro shows an urban community that is multicultural, supportive, and happy—exactly like the neighborhoods that many families choose to live and raise their children in. Text on every other page rhymes unobtrusively. Unlike the vocabulary found in A Is for Activist (2013), this book’s is entirely age-appropriate (though some parents might not agree that picketing is a way to show “that we care”). In A Is for Activist, a cat was hidden on each page; this time, finding the duck is the game. Counting is almost peripheral to the message. On the page with “Seven bikes and scooters and helmets to share,” identifying toys in an artistic heap is confusing. There is only one helmet for five toys, unless you count the second helmet worn by the girl riding a scooter—but then there are eight items, not seven. Seven helmets and seven toys would have been clearer. That quibble aside, Nagara's graphic design skills are evident, with deep colors, interesting angles, and strong lines, in a mix of digital collage and ink.
Ideal for any community where children count. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-60980-632-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Triangle Square Books for Young Readers
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
