A deceptively simple, joyous introduction to set theory, with lots of other concept practice as a bonus.
Sam’s got a mess, but he knows how to have fun cleaning it up: sorting it!
Brown-skinned Sam stands in front of his “heap” of toys, an exuberantly colorful pile that stands out against the muted, neutral backgrounds in Jocelyn’s collage illustrations. “First he finds Obo the robot, one of a kind. Then two snarling dinosaurs, three little boxes, and four fake foods. How many things is that?” From this simple opening, Jocelyn takes Sam and readers through many permutations of organizational possibilities for his stuff: rocks, round things, things that come in twos; things that are striped; things that are soft or fuzzy or smelly; and so on. Each double-page spread offers at least one sorting possibility and myriad opportunities for involvement. Items that rhyme are paired visually but not textually, inviting readers to vocalize “cat” and “bat,” “fox” and “box.” The homely hodgepodge of media—photographs, spare drawings, intricate paper-collage—combines with open-ended questions (“What else floats?”) to practically beg readers to look outside the book for examples from their own lives to add to Sam’s categories or start their own. Layouts are varied and inventive; early on, baker’s twine makes an elegant Venn diagram, and later, a Pac-Man maze includes both “things Sam bites” and “some things [that] bite Sam.”
A deceptively simple, joyous introduction to set theory, with lots of other concept practice as a bonus. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-91805-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it.
A succession of animal dads do their best to teach their young to say “Dada” in this picture-book vehicle for Fallon.
A grumpy bull says, “DADA!”; his calf moos back. A sad-looking ram insists, “DADA!”; his lamb baas back. A duck, a bee, a dog, a rabbit, a cat, a mouse, a donkey, a pig, a frog, a rooster, and a horse all fail similarly, spread by spread. A final two-spread sequence finds all of the animals arrayed across the pages, dads on the verso and children on the recto. All the text prior to this point has been either iterations of “Dada” or animal sounds in dialogue bubbles; here, narrative text states, “Now everybody get in line, let’s say it together one more time….” Upon the turn of the page, the animal dads gaze round-eyed as their young across the gutter all cry, “DADA!” (except the duckling, who says, “quack”). Ordóñez's illustrations have a bland, digital look, compositions hardly varying with the characters, although the pastel-colored backgrounds change. The punch line fails from a design standpoint, as the sudden, single-bubble chorus of “DADA” appears to be emanating from background features rather than the baby animals’ mouths (only some of which, on close inspection, appear to be open). It also fails to be funny.
Plotless and pointless, the book clearly exists only because its celebrity author wrote it. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-00934-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat.
Dinos that love to move and groove get children counting from one to 10—and perhaps moving to the beat.
Beginning with a solo bop by a female dino (she has eyelashes, doncha know), the dinosaur dance party begins. Each turn of the page adds another dino and a change in the dance genre: waltz, country line dancing, disco, limbo, square dancing, hip-hop, and swing. As the party would be incomplete without the moonwalk, the T. Rex does the honors…and once they are beyond their initial panic at his appearance, the onlookers cheer wildly. The repeated refrain on each spread allows for audience participation, though it doesn’t easily trip off the tongue: “They hear a swish. / What’s this? / One more? / One more dino on the floor.” Some of the prehistoric beasts are easily identifiable—pterodactyl, ankylosaurus, triceratops—but others will be known only to the dino-obsessed; none are identified, other than T-Rex. Packed spreads filled with psychedelically colored dinos sporting blocks of color, stripes, or polka dots (and infectious looks of joy) make identification even more difficult, to say nothing of counting them. Indeed, this fails as a counting primer: there are extra animals (and sometimes a grumpy T-Rex) in the backgrounds, and the next dino to join the party pokes its head into the frame on the page before. Besides all that, most kids won’t get the dance references.
It’s a bit hard to dance, or count, to this beat. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
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