Between heavily corrugated covers, “Doodler” (aka Todd Harris Goldman) offers a gallery of common zoo animals, Alligator to Zebra, depicted full-spread–size in a bright, simple graphic style. This is all very well and helps to demonstrate how it is that he has (according to the jacket blurb) “a successful clothing line” among his assets. Unfortunately he doesn’t stop with the art but adds uncommonly inept verses for each creature: B is for Beaver “…living in rivers and streams. / It knocks down trees / And, of course, builds dams / Because that’s its expertise!” He also slips in a unicorn for “U” and skips “X” entirely because “I couldn’t find an animal for X.” Direct budding zoophiles instead to such more thoughtfully conceived alphabetical menageries as David Frampton’s My Beastie Book of ABC (2002), Pat Mora’s Marimba! Animales from A to Z, illustrated by Doug Cushman (2006) or David McLiman’s Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet (2006). (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: July 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85201-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
This charming, colorful counting tale of ten little fish runs full-circle. Although the light verse opens and closes with ten fish swimming in a line, page-by-page the line grows shorter as the number of fish diminishes one-by-one. One fish dives down, one gets lost, one hides, and another takes a nap until a single fish remains. Then along comes another fish to form a couple and suddenly a new family of little fish emerges to begin all over. Slick, digitally-created images of brilliant marine flora and fauna give an illusion of underwater depth and silence enhancing the verse’s numerical and theatrical progression. The holistic story bubbles with life’s endless cycle. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63569-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Nothing riveting but serviceable enough.
Children are introduced to the concepts of sorting and classifying in this bedtime story.
It is getting close to bedtime, and Marco’s mother asks him to put his toys away. Marco—who thinks of himself as a scientist—corrects her: “You mean time to sort the animals.” And that’s what he proceeds to do. Marco sorts his animals into three baskets labeled “Flying Animals,” “Swimming Animals,” and “Animals That Move on Land,” but the animals will not sleep. So he sorts them by color: “Mostly Brown,” “Black and White,” and “Colors of the Rainbow,” but Zebra is upset to be separated from Giraffe. Next, Marco sorts his animals by size: “Small,” “Medium,” and “Large,” but the big animals are cramped and the small ones feel cold. Finally, Marco ranges them around his bed from biggest to smallest, thus providing them with space to move and helping them to feel safe. Everyone satisfied, they all go to sleep. While the plot is flimsy, the general idea that organizing and classifying can be accomplished in many different ways is clear. Young children are also presented with the concept that different classifications can lead to different results. The illustrations, while static, keep the focus clearly on the sorting taking place. Marco and his mother have brown skin. The backmatter includes an explanation of sorting in science and ideas for further activities.
Nothing riveting but serviceable enough. (Math picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62354-128-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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