Disappointing.
Is it a puppet? Is it a book? It’s both.
Extra-thick pages and a small trim size make this novelty book appealing to toddlers. The baby dinosaur finger puppet that pokes through the center hole is made out of a diamond-patterned turquoise fabric with a stitched-on smile on its face. It is utterly charming, though it is also pictured with yellow felt spikes running down its back, a physical feature this species of dinosaur did not have. The slight story (primarily one sentence per spread) describes Baby T. Rex’s attempts to be “the biggest baddest dino ever!” Confusingly, the finger puppet is static—and perpetually smiling. The dark backgrounds in the book make it difficult to see or imagine her actions. When she stomps her feet, only her head moves. Her roar is silent. Grandpa T. Rex is certainly fierce-looking, but his dark body is difficult to distinguish from an equally dark background. Sadly, all of the baby dinosaur’s practice at ferocity is for naught. The book ends with her apologizing to Grandpa and going to sleep. Companion book Baby Yeti follows a similar format. The yeti is white with a turquoise face and sparkly gold horns. But the yeti, referred to as “he,” has a more active role—building a snow castle, skating, and sledding. Taken together, they deliver a possibly unintentional message about the agency of males and the lack of such for females.
Disappointing. (Novelty board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7972-0567-0
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
Hits just the right note for fans of the series and newcomers alike.
A stuffed dog (and his baby) are afraid until they realize they have each other.
Patricelli’s instantly recognizable baby—White, still perpetually diaper clad, still with but one hair—from Bigger! Bigger! (2018) and many more is back with an adorable purple stuffed animal named Doggie. From swimming pools to strangers, Doggie gets pretty scared. The baby provides the pup lots of reassurance (including time with baby’s blankie) so that in the end, neither one is too afraid anymore. Adult readers will get a kick out of the fact that Doggie’s fears are actually the baby’s fears. What’s more, readers see the baby trying many of the same calm-down tactics on the stuffed canine that caregivers use on children. Both this device and the first-person narration are clever tools that will play well with little readers who likely share many of the same fears. The black-outlined images stand out against bold, saturated backgrounds, drawn with just enough detail to be interesting but not too busy. The simplicity of the illustrations doesn’t prevent Patricelli from conveying emotion, from the baby’s panic at possibly losing Doggie to the caregiver’s palpable relief at having found it. All of the characters present White save a few background figures. Patricelli’s rhyming Mad, Mad, MAD features the baby expressing anger and ultimately using techniques to work through it.
Hits just the right note for fans of the series and newcomers alike. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0379-0
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
A sweet if uneven expression of parents’ love for babies.
A love song to baby.
Rhyming verse expresses animal parents’ love for their little ones and is accompanied by cartoon-style illustrations of animal families rendered in bold colors and rounded forms. The succinct text pairs nicely with the spare art style, which offers uncluttered spreads focused on the parent-and-child interactions. “You’re everything FRESH, / the morning’s first dew,” reads one spread, for example, which is illustrated with a picture of a panda cub standing on top of its prone parent while reaching for a dewdrop falling from a branch. Behind them, a blue background is warmed by a huge, yellow semicircle representing the rising sun. Other animal families occupy other pages, so there’s no sequential storyline to speak of, but the text as a whole is framed by an opening spread depicting crocodile parents waiting for their (very large) egg to hatch, and hatch it does in the closing spread, which reads, “You’re every wish answered, / our hearts, how they grew… / every day countless, / everything you.” While the sentiment here is heartfelt, this use of “every day countless” is one example of several instances when word choices undermine clarity.
A sweet if uneven expression of parents’ love for babies. (Picture book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-30141-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
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