Book Buds Kidlit Reviews

Schizophrenia, A-Z

The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!
by Steve Martin; illustrated by Roz Chast

Flying Dolphin Press

Reviewed by Kelly Herold

I'm of two minds reviewing this. On the one hand, does the world really need another alphabet book? (I have one child who refused to be read yet another alphabet book from age two on.)  On the other hand, how can a creative, wacky alphabet book be a bad thing? On the one hand: I hate the whole celebrity book industry. On the other hand, Steve Martin is a smart celebrity who can write (see: Shopgirl) and Roz Chast is a genius (see: The New Yorker). On the one hand, it's nice to see a book for children that adults will enjoy.  Over to you, other hand: aren't we all just a little sick of coy books written to two audiences?

It's difficult to review a picture book when your mind is so obviously boggled, but I'll do my best. 

One hand:

Steve Martin's couplets are funny and scan beautifully. No stray syllables here!  His "letter" choices are unusual, giving xylophone, x-ray, and zebra a sorely needed break.  Take the letter X as a successful example of Martin's technique:

Ambidextrous Alex was actually axed
For waxing, then faxing, his boss's new slacks.

These lines have a nice crunchy feel to them and are truly new. Chast's iconic illustrations add to Martin's lines. They're busy and full of supplementary detail (the X page, for example, does indeed contain xylophones in the illustration), giving the child plenty to look at and consider. 

Chast has added a truly brilliant touch to her illustrations, posters and notes that deal with English's infuriating orthography. On the X page, for example, a poster gracing the side of a desk reads, "Links, minks, facts, and links sound like they have X's, But that idea STINKS!" 

Other hand:

Some of Martin's vocabulary choices tend to the overly knowing.   Do you really want to explain the letter G to a three year old?: "While Granny in Greenland had gravlax for three,/Her gallant son Gary grew green gracefully." Really? Or, how about O?: "Old Ollie the owl owed Owen an oboe/But instead bought him oysters at Osgood's in Soho."  Shorthand? O is for annOying.

Also on this other hand...I wonder about Chast's illustrations and their appeal to the average alphabet-book audience.  Do small children really appreciate her anxious style?

In bringing my two minds together, I find I have to give this book two ratings.  One for adults (3 buds) and one for children (2 buds).  Considering that celebrity books are really written with adults in mind, The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z! is a marketing success just in time for the holidays.

Run the water!

One Naked Baby
by Maggie Smith

Reviewed by Kelly Herold

I’m not usually a huge fan of new counting books. I mean, really, how many do you need? Let’s see, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-and-10. And that’s about it. But there’s something new about Maggie Smith’s One Naked Baby: Counting to Ten and Back Again that just can’t be ignored. It begins:

One naked baby,
Two fat cats,
Three laundry baskets,
Four silly hats!

Smith's baby is just so pleased to begin the day, streaking from the bathtub in a race to get outside, that he or she (it isn't clear) begins to dress hat first. Mom helps the baby get ready, and out the door they go. And “what’s waiting for Baby, so yellow and bright? Ten happy daffodils—oh what a sight!”

And they are a sight. Smith’s cheerful, colorful paintings are a delight, echoing the baby’s pure joy in exploring the outdoors. As Smith counts back again, the baby sees worms, and robins, stones, and sticks before,

Four perfect puddles,
Three wet pups!
Two muddy froggy boots
splash up the path—
and one naked baby
goes back in the bath!

Toddlers will thrill at the baby’s escapades and his or her eventual return to the bath. Smith’s snappy, quick rhymes are great fun to read aloud. One Naked Baby is this season’s perfect baby or toddler gift.

Rating: *\*\*\

When the circus came to town

Who Put the B in Ballyhoo?
by Carlyn Beccia

I'm just old enough to remember the last traveling circus to pitch its Big Tent in my hometown, complete with a sideshow my parents wouldn't let me see. No bearded lady for underage me. Drat!

But by the time I was old enough for such tawdry delights, circuses were a glitzy affair best housed in Madison Square Garden or Las Vegas. And a Brazilian wax took care of the hirsute madam's little problem.

Sure, you don't have to sweat it out in that stuffy tent nowadays, and there's no aroma of elephant patties, but surely we lost something when the stakes were pulled for the last time.

Beccia brings us back to when the circus coming to town was the big deal. She recreates the look of those hand-painted and -lettered bills that were plastered on barns and walls, and her tumultuous, frenzied compositions capture the larger-than-life antics in the ring, with some tantalizing factoids about what went on outside it.

We all know P. T. Barnum's maxim: "There's a sucker born every minute." But looking at those posters makes a believer out of me. I'm back there with peanut shells crunching underfoot, crinkling my nose and gaping in wonder.

It's an alphabet book, and she keeps her rhymes short, sweet and absolutely perfect:

H is for Hairy
for hair can be weird,
Some girls have curls
but Ann has a beard.

(I don't know what's with my obsession today. I just plucked my own chin, maybe that's it.)

While I've been charmed by this book, whether it gets picked up by contemporary kids with a thousand other entertainment options is hard to say.

Rating: *\*\*\

Counting critters

Ninety-three in My Family
by Erica S. Perl; illustrated by Mike Lester

We had a lot of pets growing up. A dog, gerbils, tropical fish of every stripe and variety. But that ain't nuthin. When the boy in this story is asked how many are in his family, he mentally adds up all the owls, gophers, lions, flamingoes, llamas, and, oh, I forget how many pets.

Honestly, who can keep track? But it's fun trying. Seth instantly ripped this from my mitts and has been scouring the book for all its hoofed, pawed, clawed, finned and feathered characters.

Sure, most preschoolers already love counting, but even if they didn't, Perl and Lester slyly sneak it all in with rolicking verses that careen from kitchen to car to bathtub and even the bed, mounded high with sleepy critters.

Lester hand-sketched everything then digitally colored it, but it perfectly imitates the splotchy, impromptu feel of watercolors that just shouts "zany!"

Nothing kills incentive like telling kids math is hard, but you'd never know it here, where you'll be hunting for that poor, carsick gerbil or making sure you've spotted all the tigers (wait, they're not spotted, they're striped. Hah!)

The boy's teacher finally lists them all on the blackboard, and you may be amazed at what you missed.

I want to hire this team to make broccoli taste like cupcakes. I bet they could do it too.

Rating: *\*\*\

And one big "amen"

Count My Blessings: 1 through 10

by Salina Yoon

One of the zillion cool things about blogging is getting acquainted with some of the authors, who otherwise wouldn't know me if I stole their pens at a book signing.

I've had a warm correspondence with Salina Yoon, who creates novelty books -- unusual and eye-catching board books, often with lots shimmer and glitter for happy little hands. Both her Easter and Hanukkah books earned high marks on this site.

She's now aimed her colorful magic to everyday blessings in a counting book. A teddy bear says his nightly prayers for his family and favorite toys: one house, two parents, three friends, etc.:

Bless my friends both old and new.
Bless my pets, so dear to me too.

The pictures are awash in vivid primary colors, with lots of fun purples especially, but I miss all the shiny stuff. That's okay, it's simple and sweet and makes something abstract -- praying to an invisible deity -- concrete by counting things that are real to the child.

Rating: *\*\*\

Workbooks for fun

Simple Spelling, Giant Sticker Activity Work Book and Activity Work Book.
Priddy Books

Reviewed by Brett Levy of DadTalk

Until a teacher in the fourth grade gave me crap about my (still) awful penmanship, I enjoyed learning how to write. I always found it fun trying to make an “a” or “q” within the lines on that funky-colored paper most of us at some point practiced on.

Today, learning to write can be more fun than ever, especially with all the colorful workbooks to choose from. Three sitting on my desk fit the bill.

The most sedate of the trio, Simple Spelling, gets back to basics. In the first few pages your child can trace each letter over and over by just wiping off the dry-erase ink. The latter pages are simple fill-in-the-blank letters to practice letter writing and spelling.

My only gripe is that the black pen wasn’t attached to the book by some sort of string. Despite the strange look I got from my wife, I linked the pen to the internal spiral binder with dental floss. (Hey, I didn’t have any yarn around.) Also, Simple Spelling doesn’t come with a cleaning cloth, which resulted in piles of dirty tissues floating on the bedroom floor after an hour of practicing.

The Giant Sticker Activity Work Book is bright and fun to use. Tykes can practice their letters, sketch animals or navigate mazes. And stickers are always popular.

While I’m sure this isn’t a real flaw, my son won’t use this work book because he can’t erase the ink – you have to provide your own pen here – after drawing the letters. I guess using Simple Spelling first generated higher expectations. Still, this book is chock-full of learning activities that will keep kids busy for hours.

The Activity Work Book is the most challenging of the trio, because it offers the widest variety of activities. A child can learn how to spell and draw a dinosaur on the same page. The book includes mazes, letter practice, simple math and word searches.

The book includes blue, red and green dry-erase pens with a cotton cleaning cloth, but the flimsy plastic pen cover doesn’t stay on. This made it difficult to keep the pens together with the book.

The Activity Work Book is labeled for kids over 3, but to this parent it seems far more difficult than Simple Spelling, which claims to be for children over 4. I would swap the two ratings.

Final note: it may just be me, but these books – which are loaded with trucks, cars, dinosaurs and sailboats – seem male centric. There are plenty of farm animals, flowers and stuffed bears for girls to enjoy, but the imbalance is noticeable. Still, I wouldn’t hesitate to give these books to my daughter to enjoy once she’s old enough.

Rating: *\*\*\

Puzzle blocks for building minds

Let’s Count! and Let’s Make Shapes!

(Nick Jr.)

Reviewed by Brett Levy of DadTalk

Being a big fan of puzzles, I’ve been sticking them in my son’s face as soon as he could walk and talk. Happily, he loves them as much as I do.

So imagine the boy’s excitement when I brought home two manufactured books that are essentially puzzles using six colored blocks. Each page consists of a pattern that must be matched by turning the blocks around and around and putting them in the right spot in the little notched holder at the bottom of the book.

Of the two books, Let’s Make Shapes is more interesting. It’s harder than you think for a preschooler to get the pieces in the right position to create a box-in-the-box like this: © I suppose this little puzzle also helps fire a few neurons in the developing brain.

While Let’s Count is supposed to have the added value of teaching numbers, it’s a bit more bland. Speaking of which, the caption text on each page is completely forgettable. So are the Nickelodeon tie-in characters – such as Dora the Explorer – dotting each page.

But it doesn’t really matter since the only thing your child will care about is playing with the blocks.

Rating: *\*\

Got your goose

Gossie and Friends

by Olivia Dunrea

Oooh ... flaps. We love flaps around here. Little fingers can't wait to lift them and see what's underneath. Hey, wait 'til I read it first, 'kay?

Gossie's a goose from a board book series, and this is her flap book where she hides, plays with friends, counts, etc. It pretends to be educational, but we all know flap books aren't about becoming geniuses. They're about fun! And, uh, crying hysterically when the flaps tear.

The yellow goslings remind me of bathroom decor you can buy at Target, but rendering everything in watercolor (outlined in black ink) somehow makes it artier. It's in an extra-big size too, making it harder to lose and easier for those tiny paws to grab onto.

Rating: *\*\

Dinosaurs from A to Z

Could a Tyrannosaurus Play Table Tennis?

by Andrew Plant

Reviewed by Deb Clark

My 4-year-old has become obsessed with blood. Specifically, she’s intrigued by the fact that if someone loses all his blood, he’ll die. And, ever since we rented that Mesozoic-era classic “Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock,” she has added dinosaurs to the mix, making the conversation go like this:

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“If a dinosaur with really, really, really sharp teeth bites a person, all his blood will come out and he will die. Right?”

“Yes, honey, that’s right.”

In Could a Tyrannosaurus Play Table Tennis? Andrew Plant presents an alphabet’s worth of ancient reptiles engaged in very un-dinosaur-like activities – playing volleyball, painting, flying a kite. Each page features a vibrant-hued painting of a dinosaur actively engaged in its specific pursuit, as well as a pronunciation guide for the name (extremely helpful with entries like homalocephale  and xuanhanosaurus), as well as information on what period the dinosaur lived in, where its fossils were found, how big it was and what it ate.

The book also includes a clever timeline that provides a clear picture of what types of creatures lived when, from squiggly little one-celled organisms on up. In a double-page spread at the end, all 26 of the book’s dinosaurs get together for a group shot with a couple of human kids.

It’s a clever way to reveal how the various animals compared in size, although I don’t like the way some of the more toothy dinosaurs are looking at those kids. Guess my daughter comes by her morbid imagination honestly.

Rating: */*/*

How silly is this? Let me count the ways ...

Grandpa Gazillion's Number Yard

by Laurie Keller

A three does, um, double duty as a camel saddle. An eleven can be used as stilts. Attach the two to the zero in twenty for a handy pushcart for your gorilla.

Just pick up a few spare digits from the number yard and anything’s possible in this rhyming book that uses numerals up to twenty as props. Keller matches her offbeat humor with goofy, exaggerated art cluttered with visual puns, sight gags, stories-within-stories and plenty of weird stuff to count. Pay attention, in other words.

But try explaining why using a two as a saxophone is funny to someone who’s never seen one. And using a six as an eyebrow scoop for your soup? Icky. Once your kids starts getting it, though, this book should keep them giggling.

Who said numbers had to be boring? Just make sure you have your five snorkel ready in case you’re ever buried in mashed potatoes. You never know.

Rating: *\*\