A curious owl stays awake all day long and is astounded at all the colors she sees. Day dawns to a pink sky, fading to bright blue with fluffy white clouds and a yellow sun. The owl notices that the leaves on her tree are green and sees red butterflies land on orange flowers. Gray clouds bring showers, but the sun and rain together produce the most wondrous colors of all—a rainbow. When the day fades into night, the curious little owl remarks about all the beautiful colors there are in the daytime, but still she thinks the nighttime stars are the most wonderful of all. Hopgood’s graphic-design background is evident in his illustrations, which are a mixture of color and texture, painting and drawing, all brought together digitally. The simple text suits this likable story to toddlers and early preschoolers. A solid concept book, but probably without the staying power or punch of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? or Freight Train. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-374-38518-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS
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Sutton’s latest is a truck-lover’s dream come true—repetition, rhyme and onomatopoeia form the text, while construction trucks vie for readers’ attention in the illustrations. The result is a wonderfully noisy look at how roads are built. From a line on a map and an empty field to the finished road complete with lights and signs, youngsters will be able to follow all the steps, learning all the vehicles that take part in the process (a final page introduces readers to each one). “Pack the ground. Pack the ground. / Roll one way, then back. / Make the roadbed good and hard. / Clang! Crunch! Crack!” Lovelock’s debut certainly makes an impression. His pigmented ink illustrations keep the focus on the machines and the individual parts they play in building the road. The level of detail matches the text’s intended audience—enough to satisfy, not so much as to overwhelm. Pave the way to this book’s shelf; perfect for read-alouds, it will be a hit whether shared with a group or one-on-one. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: July 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3912-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2008
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION
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A hefty board book filled with ruminations on the nature of love.
While love is the topic of this board book, it’s the inventive gatefolds and charmingly vintage illustrations that readers will fall for. Brimming with sweeping declarations along the lines of “Love is / strong. // You have my back and I’ll always have yours,” the text sounds like a series of greeting cards strung together. It’s benign enough, but are most toddlers interested in generic proclamations about love? Some statements, like the ones on “unsinkable” hippos or a panda parent holding a cub “steady,” could introduce new vocabulary. At least there’s plenty of winsome critters to fawn over as the surprisingly sturdy flaps tell dramatic little ministories for each cartoon-style animal species. A downcast baby giraffe looks longingly up at a too-high tasty branch; lift a flap to bring an adult giraffe—and the delicacy—down to the baby, or watch an adventurous young fox retreat into a fold-down–flap burrow to learn that “my heart will always be home with you.” At points, the pages are tricky to turn in the correct order, but clever touches, like a series of folds that slow readers down to a sloth’s speed, make up for it. The book concludes with a gatefold revealing a vibrant playground populated with racially and ethnically diverse humans; two are wheelchair users.
Fun format; bland text. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3153-2
Page Count: 84
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS
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