Young readers will enjoy the repetition and rhyme of this one even though its format is all too familiar.
Animal and human babies alike are unsteady on their feet in this rhyming board book.
Photographs of baby animals against an all-white background show them playing, reaching, hopping, and ultimately falling down, saying “uh oh” at each landing. Then it’s Baby’s turn to go and stumble, and finally, a mirrored page asks readers to practice saying the titular phrase. Even when collaged with the occasional prop (a tennis ball, a butterfly), the photographs and page layouts are all very bare bones, leaving little for readers to explore. On the one hand, this makes the words and images easy to focus on; on the other, there’s little reason to linger and look. The black baby on the front cover is also the only baby featured, notable in a field crowded with books about and including only white babies. The text isn’t anything splashy, but its simplicity allows for the rhyming words to stand out, good vocabulary building blocks for young ears to hear aloud. All of the rhyming phrases appear in capital letters, subtly adding emphasis. The use of the phrase “uh oh” is clever given that it is often among a baby’s first spoken words. The mirror at the end encourages smiling, pointing, and, at last, lingering.
Young readers will enjoy the repetition and rhyme of this one even though its format is all too familiar. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68437-647-6
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Highlights Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
The greeting-card art and jokey rhymes work for the baby-shower market but not for the youngest readers.
Animal parents declare their love for their offspring through rhymed puns and sentimental art.
The title sets the scene for what’s to come: The owl asks the owlet as they fly together, “WHOO loves you?”; the kangaroo and joey make each other “very HOPPY”; and the lioness and cub are a “PURRRFECT pair.” Most of the puns are both unimaginative and groanworthy, and they are likely to go over the heads of toddlers, who are not know for their wordplay abilities. The text is set in abcb quatrains split over two double-page spreads. On each spread, one couplet appears on the verso within a lightly decorated border on pastel pages. On the recto, a full-bleed portrait of the animal and baby appears in softly colored and cozy images. Hearts are prominent on every page, floating between the parent and baby as if it is necessary to show the love between each pair. Although these critters are depicted in mistily conceived natural habitats and are unclothed, they are human stand-ins through and through.
The greeting-card art and jokey rhymes work for the baby-shower market but not for the youngest readers. (Board book. 6 mos-2)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-1374-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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