An unusual format makes for a nonlinear experience well-suited to the familiar round. (Board book. 1-3)
Sing the familiar song while baby safely turns the thick pages of this extra-heavy board book.
Whimsical and decorative nursery-style illustrations of a horse, a lion, a frog, a zebra, a mouse, and a hippo rowing through a fanciful landscape give toddlers much to point at as they sing along. The song starts on the front cover. Inside there is plenty of room for “merrily” to be repeated four times. On the back cover a QR code to access a musical download and the copyright statement crowds “life is but a dream,” leaving no place for libraries to affix labels necessary for shelving and checkout. A bright-red plastic cylinder serves as both hinge and handle, allowing the pages to flip around so toddlers can start wherever the book happens to fall open; it's fairly durable and can be snapped back together in the event it comes apart after being dropped. Each press-board page is wrapped in coated paper with the verso image glued on top; determined little fingers may be able to peel it off, however. Companion title The Wheels on the Bus uses the same format with an elephant driving a crocodile, a pig, and a cow “all through the town.” Only the title verse is included; readers will need to download additional stanzas.
An unusual format makes for a nonlinear experience well-suited to the familiar round. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-48671-389-9
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
A perfect piece of treasure it is not, but shiver me timbers, it’s fun.
Two pirates and their parrot companion embark on adventures to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”
Following Car, Car, Truck, Jeep (2018), Charman and Sharratt team up again for this swashbuckling, musical tale. The two buccaneers and their parrot spend a day at sea engaged in such maritime activities as scrubbing the deck and hoisting the sail along with quintessentially piratical chores like digging up buried treasure. At the end of the day—which culminates in a nonviolent walk across the plank—the two pirates return home. Charman’s rhyming text has a nice cadence, and thanks to the cover note to sing along to the tune of “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat,” it moves along at a nice clip. For the most part, the rhymes work neatly into the tune so that it reads easily the first time through. Sharratt’s black-outlined illustrations are boldly colored and eye-catching. The pirates themselves are not obviously gendered; one presents white and the other has light-brown skin. Most of the ocean creatures have anthropomorphized features—a mostly successful choice with the exception of the jellyfish and octopus, shown awkwardly with humanlike noses and smiles (and, oddly, eyebrows for the octopus). Overall, this one holds high appeal for little readers, and the nature of the singsong-y, rhyming text will make it a highly requested reread.
A perfect piece of treasure it is not, but shiver me timbers, it’s fun. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0319-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Short, sweet, and engaging; a sing-along introduction to furry first responders.
“The Wheels on the Bus” gets an extra syllable, a siren, a hose, and a snazzy new ladder.
This variation on the popular children’s song should hit the spot with budding truck aficionados among the diapered set. The text is a straight adaptation of “The Wheels on the Bus,” with firetruck and firefighting themes replacing the sights and sounds of a bus rider’s commute. The siren goes “Woo-woo-woo,” the lights go “Flash, flash, flash,” the riders “hold on tight,” the ladder goes “up, up, up,” and the hose, of course, goes “swish-swish-swish—now, the fire’s out.” The book won’t win awards for originality, but it should be a toddler pleaser. The colors on the cover are an explosion of reflective red foil against a bright yellow background; the interior colors are more muted but still bright and cheery. The firefighters and onlookers are anthropomorphic animals in firefighter costume or civvies, as the case may be. Characters include a racoon, some bunnies, a fox, and a woodchuck, among others, all rendered in an accessible, cartoony style. Between the bright colors and the smiling gameness of the furry firefighters, the proceedings should excite and delight most tots.
Short, sweet, and engaging; a sing-along introduction to furry first responders. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4244-3
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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