A happy book that should stand up to substantial toddler abuse.
The familiar game played with sturdy pull tabs.
Pookie Pop, a cartoon-style kitty, is looking for her animal friends. Using the same format as Cutie Pie Looks for the Easter Bunny (2015), Ho's cheerful, anthropomorphic animals appear when sturdy tabs are pulled. Young children will quickly chime in on the “found you” refrain as each friend is discovered. The animals included have no relationship in real life—being from every continent and looking more like stuffed animals than the real things. This is a vocabulary builder, with both common creatures and such exotic animals as rhino, toucan, and koala waiting to be found. The birthday party at the end is a happy surprise, though curiously, only six of the 12 animals found are shown gathered around the table. The rounded tabs are sandwiched between thick board pages. Toddlers firmly grasping the page may have trouble getting the tab to slide, but once they discover the reward of a cute creature hiding, they will learn to hold the page gently. The half-circle tabs are less prone to fraying than smaller, square-edged tabs.
A happy book that should stand up to substantial toddler abuse. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7600-1
Page Count: 8
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver.
The farmyard's chickens experience Halloween.
A round, full moon shines in the sky, and the chickens of Boynton's barnyard are feeling “nervous.” Pumpkins shine “with flickering eyes,” witches and wizards wander the pastures, and one chicken has seen “a mouse of enormous size.” It’s Halloween night, and readers will delight as the chickens huddle together and try to figure out what's going on. All ends well, of course, and in Boynton's trademark silly style. (It’s really quite remarkable how her ranks of white, yellow-beaked chickens evoke rows of candy corn.) At this point parents and children know what they're in for when they pick up a book by the prolific author, and she doesn't disappoint here. The chickens are silly, the pigs are cute, and the coloring and illustrations evoke a warmth that little ones wary of Halloween will appreciate. For children leery of the ghouls and goblins lurking in the holiday's iconography, this is a perfect antidote, emphasizing all the fun Halloween has to offer.
An excellent, rounded effort from a creator who knows how to deliver. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7611-9300-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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