A potty-training book to go for.
Rhyming verse and cartoon illustrations assure toilet-training readers that everyone, but everyone, uses the potty.
In this companion title to Even Superheroes Have to Sleep (2017), the cover art depicts a caped woman of color with brown skin and dark hair floating into a bathroom with a can-do look on her face, and then the front endpapers depict her soaring over a cityscape toward the page turn. Although she opens the book, she is not the protagonist. Instead, each double-page spread features a different character heading to the head. A firefighter, a ninja, a magician, a teacher, a zookeeper, a baker, a detective, a movie star, and a pilot are all depicted, and their characterizations present both men and women, white people and people of color, among them. Wordplay abounds from spread to spread to exploit mild scatological humor and offer a bevy of synonyms for the word “bathroom,” but rhythm and cadence often stumble, which will likely make read-alouds falter—still, aesthetics are not usually the priority in a potty book. The book culminates with a group of children rushing off to the potty, heeding the closing admonition: “Always listen to your body. / Even children use the potty.” An enclosed bathroom reward chart with stickers (only in the trade edition) might just prompt readers to head to the loo, too.
A potty-training book to go for. (Picture book. 1-3)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-55934-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to.
This simplified version of Diesen and Hanna’s The Pout-Pout Fish (2008) is appropriate for babies and toddlers.
Brief, rhyming text tells the story of a sullen fish cheered up with a kiss. A little pink sea creature pokes his head out of a hole in the sea bottom to give the gloomy fish some advice: “Smile, Mr. Fish! / You look so down // With your glum-glum face / And your pout-pout frown.” He explains that there’s no reason to be worried, scared, sad or mad and concludes: “How about a smooch? / And a cheer-up wish? // Now you look happy: / What a smile, Mr. Fish!” Simple and sweet, this tale offers the lesson that sometimes, all that’s needed for a turnaround in mood is some cheer and encouragement to change our perspective. The clean, uncluttered illustrations are kept simple, except for the pout-pout fish’s features, which are delightfully expressive. Little ones will easily recognize and likely try to copy the sad, scared and angry looks that cross the fish’s face.
An upbeat early book on feelings with a simple storyline that little ones will respond to. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-374-37084-8
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As with many holiday gifts, the sparkly packaging may interest toddlers more than what’s inside.
Readers can count down eight of Santa's reindeer as they jump up and out of the scene.
In each one of the mostly double-page spreads, one reindeer, from Dasher to Blitzen, plays a central role in a winter activity (sledding, ski jumping, ice skating—and soccer and yoga?) that launches the creature into the air. Glitter-speckled tabs, each with small portraits of a member of Santa's herd, appear at either the top or the right side of each page, which little fingers will enjoy flipping. In what looks to be pencil-and-watercolor cartoons, Rogers uses different facial expressions, as well as collars, bows or other accessories, to distinguish the reindeer from one another. Donner (not Donder) and Blitzen are squeezed together on the penultimate spread, likely to keep the page count down. The verse mostly scans, but the rhyme scheme has become the cliché of counting books: "Eight jolly reindeer / stretching up to heaven. / Up goes Dasher / and then there are... // Seven...." Santa, his iconic sleigh and the eight reindeer in flight make a dramatic and required appearance on the book's final double-page spread.
As with many holiday gifts, the sparkly packaging may interest toddlers more than what’s inside. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-65145-5
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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