This attractive title, which combines counting practice with a tour through a lively garden, invites and rewards leisurely...
This oversized board title uses flowers and a garden theme to help children’s counting skills blossom.
Children will count 10 different types of flowers as they make their ways through the garden, with rhyming couplets introducing their names. For example: “Five cherry blossoms opening in the trees. / Six crimson hollyhocks trembling in the breeze.” For each featured number, children can also find the same number of bees buzzing about the page, sometimes in plain sight and other times hiding behind a flap. The flaps, in the shapes of flower petals, trees, butterfly wings, and more, conceal all manner of critters, from stray bees to birds, ladybugs, foxes, and mice. Aside from the counting and lift-the-flap adventure, there is also the progression of the seasons to take in. Readers move from winter to early summer, and more and more critters join in the fun as the world warms. Ormes’ screen-printed and digital artwork makes this one a real treat. Children and adults alike will enjoy a romp through the charming, bustling garden she brings to life.
This attractive title, which combines counting practice with a tour through a lively garden, invites and rewards leisurely exploration. (Board book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8531-7
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Big Picture/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
A sweet, tender and charming experience to read aloud or together.
A clueless duckling tries to make a new friend.
He is confused by this peculiar-looking duck, who has a long tail, doesn’t waddle and likes to be alone. No matter how explicitly the creature denies he is a duck and announces that he is a cat, the duckling refuses to acknowledge the facts. When this creature expresses complete lack of interest in playing puddle stomp, the little ducking goes off and plays on his own. But the cat is not without remorse for rejecting an offered friendship. Of course it all ends happily, with the two new friends enjoying each other’s company. Bramsen employs brief sentences and the simplest of rhymes to tell this slight tale. The two heroes are meticulously drawn with endearing, expressive faces and body language, and their feathers and fur appear textured and touchable. Even the detailed tree bark and grass seem three-dimensional. There are single- and double-page spreads, panels surrounded by white space and circular and oval frames, all in a variety of eye-pleasing juxtapositions. While the initial appeal is solidly visual, young readers will get the gentle message that friendship is not something to take for granted but is to be embraced with open arms—or paws and webbed feet.
A sweet, tender and charming experience to read aloud or together. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-86990-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
Let these crayons go back into their box.
The Crayons return to celebrate Easter.
Six crayons (Red, Orange, Yellow, Esteban, who is green and wears a yellow cape, White, and Blue) each take a shape and scribble designs on it. Purple, perplexed and almost angry, keeps asking why no one is creating an egg, but the six friends have a great idea. They take the circle decorated with red shapes, the square adorned with orange squiggles “the color of the sun,” the triangle with yellow designs, also “the color of the sun” (a bit repetitious), a rectangle with green wavy lines, a white star, about which Purple remarks: “DID you even color it?” and a rhombus covered with blue markings and slap the shapes onto a big, light-brown egg. Then the conversation turns to hiding the large object in plain sight. The joke doesn’t really work, the shapes are not clear enough for a concept book, and though colors are delineated, it’s not a very original color book. There’s a bit of clever repartee. When Purple observe that Esteban’s green rectangle isn’t an egg, Esteban responds, “No, but MY GOSH LOOK how magnificent it is!” Still, that won’t save this lackluster book, which barely scratches the surface of Easter, whether secular or religious. The multimedia illustrations, done in the same style as the other series entries, are always fun, but perhaps it’s time to retire these anthropomorphic coloring implements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Let these crayons go back into their box. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-62105-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
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