Endearing characters and tactile involvement, with a little coaching, should make this a hit with toddlers.
A cat, a dog, and a bird play hide-and-seek with the help of dexterous readers.
Movable elements “animate” the hide-and-seek play of Pepe the dog and Millie the cat, as well as their little friend Emma, a bird, in this simple, charmingly illustrated story. The thick pages of this board book incorporate sliding panels that allow the characters to slip behind trees, reeds, and flowerbeds, among other things, hiding or revealing themselves depending on which way readers slide the panels. Window and door flaps offer more possible hiding places for toddlers to explore, although a rough toddler with a good grip might make short work of them. When Pepe and Millie can’t find Emma, they search the kitchen, where readers can open the doors to the cabinets and also to the oven, where Pepe is baking a cake. Hopefully, kids will realize that ovens get hot and are not suitable places to hide or play. This book may well delight toddlers, but caregivers should probably give it a dry run by themselves to figure out how to operate the various features. Opening the flaps for the first time and moving the sliding panels can be tricky, although the book is generally well-designed and not hard to operate. The simultaneously publishing A Day with Pepe & Millie uses the sliding panels to show characters swinging, feeding fish, and slurping spaghetti, among other activities.
Endearing characters and tactile involvement, with a little coaching, should make this a hit with toddlers. (Board book. 18 mos.-4)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8075-6482-0
Page Count: 17
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fun format; bland text.
A hefty board book filled with ruminations on the nature of love.
While love is the topic of this board book, it’s the inventive gatefolds and charmingly vintage illustrations that readers will fall for. Brimming with sweeping declarations along the lines of “Love is / strong. // You have my back and I’ll always have yours,” the text sounds like a series of greeting cards strung together. It’s benign enough, but are most toddlers interested in generic proclamations about love? Some statements, like the ones on “unsinkable” hippos or a panda parent holding a cub “steady,” could introduce new vocabulary. At least there’s plenty of winsome critters to fawn over as the surprisingly sturdy flaps tell dramatic little ministories for each cartoon-style animal species. A downcast baby giraffe looks longingly up at a too-high tasty branch; lift a flap to bring an adult giraffe—and the delicacy—down to the baby, or watch an adventurous young fox retreat into a fold-down–flap burrow to learn that “my heart will always be home with you.” At points, the pages are tricky to turn in the correct order, but clever touches, like a series of folds that slow readers down to a sloth’s speed, make up for it. The book concludes with a gatefold revealing a vibrant playground populated with racially and ethnically diverse humans; two are wheelchair users.
Fun format; bland text. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3153-2
Page Count: 84
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
Clear nonfiction for the very young is hard to come by, and it appears that the Look & Learn series may finally be on...
An exploration of the human body through colorful photos.
Every other double-page spread labels the individual parts on one major area: head, torso, back, arm and leg. Ethnically diverse boy-girl pairs serve as models as arrows point to specific features and captions float nearby. While the book usefully mentions rarely depicted body parts, such as eyebrow, armpit and shin, some of the directional arrows are unclear. The arrow pointing at a girl’s shoulder hits her in the upper arm, and the belly button is hard is distinguish from the stomach (both are concealed by shirts). Facts about the human body (“Guess what? You have tiny hairs in your nose that keep out dirt”) appear on alternating spreads along with photos of kids in action. Baby Animals, another title in the Look & Learn series, uses an identical format to introduce readers to seal pups, leopard cubs, elephant calves, ducklings and tadpoles. In both titles, the final spread offers a review of the information and encourages readers to match baby animals to their parents or find body parts on a photo of kids jumping on a trampoline.
Clear nonfiction for the very young is hard to come by, and it appears that the Look & Learn series may finally be on the right track despite earlier titles that were much too conceptual for the audience. (Board book. 18 mos.-3)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4263-1483-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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