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PEEK AND SEEK

Name: PEEK AND SEEK
Author: Violet Peto
ISBN: 978-1-4654-6865-9

by Violet Peto ; illustrated by Charlotte Milner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 11, 2018

Fun as a peekaboo, but the language and natural history alike are both shoddy.

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Large fold-out flaps open to transform a set of seemingly empty scenes into landscapes teeming with wildlife.

Collective titles offer hints for each of the five spreads. The sky over a row of suburban houses fills with “A flock of birds” (identified in a key at the end as starlings) when the flap is lifted, an apparently deserted patch of woodland is suddenly home to “A pack of wolves,” and four other social species are likewise revealed on other spreads. Along with the highlighted animals, Milner adds assorted other creatures and items to her painted scenes for viewers to spot—the cutaway view of a rabbit warren is a positive archaeological treasure house of bones, broken pots, and ancient coins—and Peto strews factual snippets throughout, which are capped by a “factfile” at the close. As an early foray into the natural world, though, this has some issues. Not only are some of the fauna, such as a bear, a moose, deer, and a bald eagle in the wolf scene, left unidentified, but the collective of leaf-cutter ants are drawn with anthropomorphic eyes and wrongly dubbed an “army” rather than the more generally accepted “colony.” Moreover, an alternative term for “flock” of starlings, “murmuration,” is misspelled.

Fun as a peekaboo, but the language and natural history alike are both shoddy. (Informational novelty. 2-5)

Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4654-6865-9

Page Count: 18

Publisher: DK Publishing

Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
COUNTING 1 2 3
by Violet Peto ; illustrated by Liza Lewis

- BOOK REVIEW
IS IT WARM ENOUGH FOR ICE CREAM?
by Violet Peto ; illustrated by Victoria Palastanga

- BOOK REVIEW
MY FIRST OUT AND ABOUT
by Violet Peto ; illustrated by Rachael Hare

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A KISSING HAND FOR CHESTER RACCOON

From the Kissing Hand series

by Audrey Penn ; illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2014

Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original...

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A sweetened, condensed version of the best-selling picture book, The Kissing Hand.

As in the original, Chester Raccoon is nervous about attending Owl’s night school (raccoons are nocturnal). His mom kisses him on the paw and reminds him, “With a Kissing Hand… / We’ll never be apart.” The text boils the story down to its key elements, causing this version to feel rushed. Gone is the list of fun things Chester will get to do at school. Fans of the original may be disappointed that this board edition uses a different illustrator. Gibson’s work is equally sentimental, but her renderings are stiff and flat in comparison to the watercolors of Harper and Leak. Very young readers will probably not understand that Owl’s tree, filled with opossums, a squirrel, a chipmunk and others, is supposed to be a school.

Parents of toddlers starting school or day care should seek separation-anxiety remedies elsewhere, and fans of the original shouldn’t look to this version as replacement for their page-worn copies. (Board book. 2-4)

Pub Date: April 1, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-933718-77-4

Page Count: 14

Publisher: Tanglewood Publishing

Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
CHESTER RACCOON AND THE ALMOST PERFECT SLEEPOVER
by Audrey Penn ; illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson

- BOOK REVIEW
KAI TO THE RESCUE!
by Audrey Penn ; illustrated by Mike Yamada

- BOOK REVIEW
A COLOR GAME FOR CHESTER RACCOON
by Audrey Penn & illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson

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FIVE BLACK CATS

by Patricia Hegarty ; illustrated by Julia Woolf ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2013

For toddlers unafraid of typical Halloween imagery.

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A troop of cats traverse a spooky landscape as they make their way to a party hosted by ghosts.

Each double-page spread shows the felines’ encounters with the likes of an owl, jack-o’-lanterns or a bat. One or two of these creepy meetings may be too abstract for the youngest readers, as the cats hear eerie noises with no discernible source on the page. The text, which consists of one rhyming couplet per scene, mostly scans despite a couple of wobbles: “Five black cats get a bit of a scare / As the flip-flapping wings of a bat fill the air.” The sleek, slightly retro art, likely created using a computer, depicts the cats cavorting at night through a shadowy cityscape, the countryside and a haunted house; they may scare some toddlers and delight others. A brighter color palette would have given the project a friendlier, more universal appeal. Luckily, the well-lit, final party scene provides a playful conclusion.

For toddlers unafraid of typical Halloween imagery. (Board book. 2-4)