Next book

1 BIG SALAD

A DELICIOUS COUNTING BOOK

From layout to text to artwork, this counting book takes “playing with your food” to a new level.

Photographs of salad ingredients, embellished with details done in black ink, create whimsical arrays from one through 10.

Each expansive, white double-page spread presents a large, bright numeral, its printed name, and a very funny invention, from one Avocado Deer to 10 Clementine Kitties. The ink strokes are playful and active, making the various ingredient-characters come to life. The pages with nine Romaine Dogs are particularly droll, with clever usage of the ups and downs of a lettuce leaf combining with the artist’s swift pen strokes to show familiar canine antics. Less is decidedly more: after the alliteration of Tomato Turtles, it is refreshing to see Cucumber Alligators rather than Cucumber Crocodiles, and the text for the number eight meanders cheerfully from the established, animal-titling routine by showing eight Flying Walnuts, not Walnut Birds. The ingredients range from familiar to gourmet, with radicchio producing delightful manes on seven lions. Toddlers may giggle as they learn numbers and practice counting, while slightly older children will want to get out their markers and try to emulate the artwork. The counting ends gracefully with a wooden bowl full of all 10 goodies and a recipe for dressing. Even the endpapers are entertaining, crammed with tiny reproductions of the photographs.

From layout to text to artwork, this counting book takes “playing with your food” to a new level. (Picture book. 2-4)

Pub Date: June 7, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-101-99974-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016

Next book

ANIMAL SHAPES

Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable.

You think you know shapes? Animals? Blend them together, and you might see them both a little differently!

What a mischievous twist on a concept book! With wordplay and a few groan-inducing puns, Neal creates connections among animals and shapes that are both unexpected and so seemingly obvious that readers might wonder why they didn’t see them all along. Of course, a “lazy turtle” meeting an oval would create the side-splitting combo of a “SLOW-VAL.” A dramatic page turn transforms a deeply saturated, clean-lined green oval by superimposing a head and turtle shell atop, with watery blue ripples completing the illusion. Minimal backgrounds and sketchy, impressionistic detailing keep the focus right on the zany animals. Beginning with simple shapes, the geometric forms become more complicated as the book advances, taking readers from a “soaring bird” that meets a triangle to become a “FLY-ANGLE” to a “sleepy lion” nonagon “YAWN-AGON.” Its companion text, Animal Colors, delves into color theory, this time creating entirely hybrid animals, such as the “GREEN WHION” with maned head and whale’s tail made from a “blue whale and a yellow lion.” It’s a compelling way to visualize color mixing, and like Animal Shapes, it’s got verve. Who doesn’t want to shout out that a yellow kangaroo/green moose blend is a “CHARTREUSE KANGAMOOSE”?

Innovative and thoroughly enjoyable. (Board book. 2-4)

Pub Date: March 27, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4998-0534-5

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Little Bee Books

Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018

Next book

HELLO ROBOTS!

From the Hello…! series

Good for a giggle from preschool readers despite its slight imperfections.

A brightly illustrated story told in rhyme about mixed-up robots getting ready for the day.

Holub and Dickason team up for another title echoing the style of their similarly formatted Hello Knights! and Hello Ninjas! (both 2018). Here, the titular robots are having trouble getting ready for the day. They put socks on top of shoes and even forget how to eat their cereal, pouring milk on their heads and flipping their bowls upside down on the table. The confusion comes to a climax in a double gatefold in which the robots realize that they need a reboot, correcting their routines. Young readers will delight in the silliness: underpants on heads, bathing in clothes. Holub’s rhyming text works well for the most part and includes some charming turns of phrase, such as “brushing bolts” in place of brushing teeth. Dickason’s illustrations use a consistent palette of mostly primary colors and feature 1960s-style robots drawn with antennae, motherboards on boxy chests, and wheels for feet. The pages are busy and packed, allowing for new discoveries upon each read, though this busyness argues for use with older toddlers. It’s not entirely clear where the robots are headed (school?) or whether or not they’re also ETs (they fly away on a spaceship), but the story is fun enough to overlook those muddled details.

Good for a giggle from preschool readers despite its slight imperfections. (Board book. 2-4)

Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-5344-1871-4

Page Count: 26

Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

Close Quickview