Toddlers will instantly identify with this simply adorable little hero as he rolls through life.
A day in the life of a little pink truck.
Little Truck travels fast and climbs hills, accompanied by a salmon-colored larger truck, likely a caregiver stand-in. This flatbed truck follows Little Truck, giving him a boost up a hill, and after Little Truck goes into a tunnel and becomes lost for a couple of page turns, he emerges fast asleep on the back of the larger truck. Each double-page spread depicts a scene from Little Truck’s journey and is accompanied by one to three sentences of simple text, which often reads as if the bigger truck were speaking with Little Truck. Gomi’s signature style is in top form here. All this master uses to create the bodies of the trucks are squares, rectangles, and circles, adding dots and dashes to create eyes, mouths, and rosy cheeks to give them personality. The deliberately sparse backgrounds of tawny browns, tans, and deep grays allow the trucks visually to pop off the page. That this little pink truck is explicitly given the masculine pronoun is a delightful, gender-norm–busting detail.
Toddlers will instantly identify with this simply adorable little hero as he rolls through life. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6300-0
Page Count: 22
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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
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Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday.
Animal parents declare their love for their offspring in alphabetical order.
Each page displays an enormous capital letter, one line of verse with the keyword capitalized, and a loving nonhuman parent gazing adoringly at their baby. “A is for Always. I always love you more. / B is for Butterfly kisses. It’s you that I adore.” While not named or labelled as such, the A is also for an alligator and its hatchling and B is for a butterfly and a butterfly child (not a caterpillar—biology is not the aim of this title) interacting in some way with the said letter. For E there are an elephant and a calf; U features a unicorn and foal; and X, keyed to the last letter of the animal’s name, corresponds to a fox and three pups. The final double-page spread shows all the featured creatures and their babies as the last line declares: “Baby, I love you from A to Z!” The verse is standard fare and appropriately sentimental. The art is cartoony-cute and populated by suitably loving critters on solid backgrounds. Hearts accent each scene, but the theme of the project is never in any doubt.
Perfect for Valentine’s Day, but the syrupy sweetness will cloy after the holiday. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-2095-6
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
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