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WHERE IS MILO'S BALL?

Just as visually appealing as the app at first glance, and possibly even more durable—but showing considerable fall-off in...

The blue cat that starred in the excellent app A Present for Milo (2010) makes an awful crossover from the digital domain.

Printed on extra-sturdy boards with folded (rather than glued) flaps, the episode sends Milo in search of his missing ball of string. Led by a helpful mouse, he discovers piles of yarn in various geometric shapes that, once each flap is lifted, reveal common items of the same shape. These range from a square slice of cheese to a triangular piece of pizza to a rectangular granola bar. Meanwhile, behind Milo, two other mice roll up the continual line of multicolored yarn that loops through each cartoon scene so that by the end the ball is restored. Not only is the prose numbingly wooden (“Little mouse,” says Milo, “will you help me find my ball of string?”), it is confusingly phrased. Milo rejects the square because it has “four sides,” which doesn’t distinguish it from the rectangle, and the oval egg isn’t like a ball because it’s “sort of round-ish but also long-ish.” Moreover, the concluding general romp comes off less as a resolution to the plotline than filler for the final spread. In marked contrast to his app incarnation, Milo is no more than a static presence in the art, his body shape even duplicated in some scenes rather than redrawn.

Just as visually appealing as the app at first glance, and possibly even more durable—but showing considerable fall-off in narrative quality and awareness of audience. (Board book. 2-3)

Pub Date: June 25, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-60905-209-6

Page Count: 16

Publisher: Blue Apple

Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012

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BALL

From the Baby Unplugged series

A sweet but not essential book.

A whole host of children presents a whole host of balls in this new installment in the Baby Unplugged series.

There are so many kinds of balls in this little board book. Big ball, shiny ball, game ball, plain ball, spot ball. And not all are necessarily balls. Some are round objects, like the snowball and the clay ball or the blueberry that is a “tiny ball.” Some balls are verb balls, like the “throw ball, / catch ball, / go ball, / fetch ball!” There is even a gotcha! ball that’s “not ball”—it’s a cube! And all these balls are being played with by an equally eclectic group of children. African-American, Asian, brown-skinned, and blond and brunette white children are all represented here in illustrations that are charming and clear but not particularly artful. It feels as though both author and illustrator are trying so hard to include so much that they’ve almost forgotten to have fun. It’s reminiscent of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish but without the spark that turns an OK book into a timeless classic. Best suited for young children who are already quite verbal.

A sweet but not essential book. (Board book. 2-3)

Pub Date: April 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-936669-42-4

Page Count: 14

Publisher: blue manatee press

Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016

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DEEP SEA DIVE

LIFT-THE-FLAP ADVENTURES

The sparkly cover and less-than-exciting interactive elements fail to fully convey the majesty of the watery deep.

A diver directly recruits his audience to explore the salty sea.

Closed, the shaped cover follows the curve of the diver’s helmet; open, it evokes goggles through which readers can explore the deep. A variety of underwater creatures are revealed through lifting flaps; brief rhyming text on the undersides of the flaps provides a little informational heft. These rhymes are not distinguished by their lyricism, alas. “Jellyfish are pretty— / some glow in the dark. / But don't swim too close— / their sting leaves a mark.” The simply drawn creatures are not depicted to scale. The seahorse dominates its page, while the toothy shark appears shorter than the sea turtle. Two-toned blue backgrounds evoke waves. Space Walk uses an identical format to survey the planets (all eight of them) and is equally superficial.

The sparkly cover and less-than-exciting interactive elements fail to fully convey the majesty of the watery deep. (Board book. 2-3)

Pub Date: March 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-1-4027-8525-2

Page Count: 12

Publisher: Sterling

Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012

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