Chiêu Anh Urban

This guessing-game board book is sweet and clever, but has a few issues.

The first spread of each riddle shows a solid, boldly-colored background with the written clues. The facing page is white or pastel and shows eyes, nose, and a few details like whiskers. The following spread shows the animal in its entirety.

The animals included are a lamb, fox, ox, bat, and a clam. The clam at the end is sporting mirrored sunglasses so the child can see a blurry picture of themselves.

The pictures are brightly colored and have large shapes creating the animals. They also include die cut eyes, smiles, etc. to trace with a finger and add tactile interest.

However, some of the word choices are odd, as are the pictures. "Happy as a clam" is not an expression I hear often and even here in our dairy-rich, quasi-rural area most kids don't know the word "ox", they call them cows or bulls. Bats are called "blind" and given dark glasses and sharp, vampire-like teeth. Most babies and toddlers aren't going to be familiar with the characterization of a fox as "sly."

Verdict: Cute pictures and a nice layout; the text is really not developmentally appropriate, but it will attract the interest of older children and parents. I dislike the factually inaccurate elements though; bats are not blind and their eyes don't glow that I'm aware of. I'd think twice about purchasing it because of this.

ISBN: 9781454925057; Published 2017 by Sterling; Borrowed from another library in my consortium… (mehr)

Does it make my intelligence suspect that it took me several minutes to figure out how the color wheel on this worked?

Each page has a cute little rhyme and features a cheerful array of color-themed animals and flowers. For example, the blue page says "Hurry, cricket,/Join the romp,/Spring brings BLUE - /hope and stomp." The page features some simple blue flowers, a blue cricket, green leaves, a red ladybug, yellow bee, green grasshopper, and orange caterpillar. As the pages progress, they add a bug. So the first page is red with a red ladybug, then orange with an orange caterpillar and the ladybug, all the way up to the final spread with a sixth bug, a purple butterfly.

At the side of the book are two ridged wheels. As you turn them, the colors (a die cut circle in the center of the flowers) change. When the colors are correctly aligned, they match the flower. So, for the orange flower, one wheel is yellow and one red. There are also little dots on the wheels to line up so they completely cover the circle.

With just six spreads, the book is small and compact, the last page being made in several layers to accomodate the wheels. The wheels themselves are very thin, almost cardstock rather than cardboard, but since they're very protected by the book I think they're probably fine. The only drawback is they're difficult to turn separately, since they're so thin and right on top of each other.

Verdict: A fun way to introduce beginning color blending. Recommended.

ISBN: 9781481487207; Published 2016 by Little Simon; Borrowed from another library in my consortium; Purchased for the library… (mehr)