Gives little readers a head start on global citizenship.
Beginning language lessons for little ones.
Each spread in this board book introduces a different child on the verso and the language they speak. First is Santiago, a boy with brown skin and short, dark hair who speaks Spanish. His Spanish dialogue counting five oranges is highlighted in white under his portrait, with each line given its English translation below it. On the facing page there’s a picture of an orange tree labeled with the numerals 1 through 5 pointing to each orange and the words written in Spanish for these numbers. Subsequent spreads show Feng, a Chinese girl who counts bicycles in Mandarin; a white girl named Kirsty counting other children in English; Thomas, a black boy, counting giraffes in French; and Taro, who simply counts up to five in Japanese, with written characters for the numbers on a chalkboard (and five cats in the illustration though they aren’t named in the text). The pièce de résistance in the book’s design is a vertical strip of buttons to the side of the recto, labeled with each child’s face and the language they speak. Press the button and a recording of a child counting from one to five in the respective languages plays, offering readers the chance to learn by hearing. The companion book, How to Say I Love You, follows a similar pattern, highlighting the same languages but depicting different children as their speakers.
Gives little readers a head start on global citizenship. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78603-080-1
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
Sure to appeal to budding paleontologists everywhere.
Colorful, fun, and informative guide for pint-sized dinosaur enthusiasts.
Kid-friendly and more informative than most dino books for tots, this lift-the-flap dinosaur book is a great next step for any kid with an interest in the subject. Each double-page panorama—occasionally folding out to three or even four pages wide—is organized around types of dinosaurs or habitats. While most featured dinosaurs are land dwellers, prehistoric reptiles of the sea and sky appear as well. Dinosaurs are rendered in bright colors on a white background in a childlike style that makes even Tyrannosaurus rex not too terrifying. Make no mistake, though; the king of the dinosaurs is clearly labeled “CARNIVORE.” Folding T. rex’s head back reveals a black-and-white handsaw, to which the text likens its enormous, sharp teeth. Another marginal illustration, captioned, “Watch out! T. rex is looking for its lunch,” shows a Triceratops specimen on a plate. Yet another reads, “Crushed dinosaur bones have been found in T. rex poop!” Several racially diverse kids appear in each scene, like toddler scientists variously observing, inspecting, and riding on the dinosaurs depicted. In addition to teaching the difference between herbivores and carnivores, the book also conveys a sense of the scale of these prehistoric beasts: Diplodocus is two school buses long, a Triceratops adult is the size of an elephant, and a Velociraptor is the size of a turkey, for example.
Sure to appeal to budding paleontologists everywhere. (Board book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0809-2
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A cheery board book to reinforce the oneness of babykind.
Ten babies in 10 countries greet friends in almost 10 languages.
Countries of origin are subtly identified. For example, on the first spread, NYC is emblazoned on a blond, white baby’s hat as well as a brown baby’s scoot-car taxi. On the next spread, “Mexico City” is written on a light brown toddler’s bike. A flag in each illustration provides another hint. However, the languages are not named, so on first reading, the fine but important differences between Spanish and Portuguese are easily missed. This is also a problem on pages showing transliterated Arabic from Cairo and Afrikaans from Cape Town. Similarly, Chinese and Japanese are transliterated, without use of traditional hànzì or kanji characters. British English is treated as a separate language, though it is, after all, still English. French (spoken by 67 million people) is included, but German, Russian, and Hindi (spoken by 101 million, 145 million, and 370 million respectively) are not. English translations are included in a slightly smaller font. This world survey comes full circle, ending in San Francisco with a beige baby sleeping in an equally beige parent’s arms. The message of diversity is reinforced by images of three babies—one light brown, one medium brown, one white—in windows on the final spread.
A cheery board book to reinforce the oneness of babykind. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-938093-87-6
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Duo Press
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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