COLORS WITH LADYBUG

A cast of friendly bugs and animals leads Little Ladybug to a rainbow’s worth of shiny new boots.

Though it’s certainly not destined to become a cherished staple of children’s literature, this book is a serviceable introduction for toddlers to the concept of colors. Six-legged Little Ladybug sets out one day in her six sparkly, bright-red boots. Along her way, a caterpillar, a chick, a frog, a dragonfly, and a butterfly offer her boots of several different colors, until she has six boots of the six different hues of the rainbow. (Apparently, ROYGBIV has no place here—indigo and violet are collapsed into purple in the absence of a seven-legged beast or insect to focus the tale.) Given that simple plot, much of the book’s interest lies in the use of tactile features to keep young readers engaged. The thick pages are die-cut, allowing little fingers to trace long, debossed trails, and are decorated with embossed features with and without glitter as well as both photorealistic elements and cartoon characters and landscape. There are enough layers and textures that the artwork has, at times, a 3-D effect. The images are almost beautiful, if cluttered and chaotic, and certainly enough to hold a child’s attention. The text is rhymed, but at times the meter suffers from an excess of syllables.

Unremarkable but adequate.