This is an adorable and well-designed picture book on feelings — in particular, the overlapping diecut hearts are genius and have a tactile appeal.

This is an adorable and well-designed picture book on feelings — in particular, the overlapping diecut hearts are genius and have a tactile appeal.
Similar to Nighty Night, Little Green Monster, Go Away, Big Green Monster!
uses clever die-cuts that gradually reveal more and more facial features of the big green monster, before slowly making them disappear again — and ends off with a killer line to boot. Thus, Ed Emberley has created a classic picture book that allows kids ample first-hand practice in the fine art of shooing monsters away.
Despite its title, this fresh and inventive book is not so much about the colours themselves, but how they interact with each other to create something new — and in the process, gets us to look at some familiar patterns in a new light.
Styled as a mini investigation of sorts, Worms for Lunch? begins by asking just that: “Who eats worms for lunch?” which immediately sets the reader thinking.
Beautiful Oops! is a book that you probably won’t find in the library — not because it isn’t a good book, but because it is so intricately designed that all it takes is one excitable kid (and an inattentive parent) to destroy it for everyone else.
Woodpeckers belong to a family of birds called picidae, which have the ability to bore holes into trees, thanks to their strong bills. In particular, woodpeckers have longer, sharper and stronger bills than the other species of birds in the same family — which probably explains why they were named as such. No thanks to Woody Woodpecker, however, I kind of grew up believing that woodpeckers peck wood just for the fun of it — when in truth, this specific skill has many important uses for the bird, including food foraging and nest excavation.
While you’re not going to learn any of this in Peck, Peck, Peck, the woodpecker’s signature skill is put to good use here.
I Spy is a simple guessing game that is often played by children or families. I Spy Pets is thus a sort of picture-book version of the game, where a large circular die-cut on each alternate spread, coupled with a clue, offers a hint as to the animal hiding behind the page.
Laura Vaccaro Seeger excels in presenting creative concept books, as seen in the previously reviewed Green, Lemons Are Not Red and The Hidden Alphabet. All of her books have a quietly artistic and poetic feel, and First the Egg is no exception.
All babies love a good game of peek-a-boo, so reading Peek-A Who? to them is a cute way to translate that interest into an interest in books. First of all, this little board book is just the right size for tiny hands to fiddle with. Secondly, the peanut-shaped die-cuts on alternate pages serve to provide the ‘peek-a’ before the grand reveal of something rhyming with ‘who’ — ‘moo’, ‘boo’ (naturally), ‘zoo’ and ‘choo-choo’. Babies will also be attracted by the striking illustrations and bold fonts that encourage word recognition.
Last but not least, the grand finale involves a little mirror that is sure to thrill the little ones who will smile on seeing their own reflection!
Just when I thought I couldn’t get excited about a ‘babyish’ board book again, having gone through too many titles to name with my two kids when they were younger, along comes a simple yet brilliant interactive board book like Chomp! Zoo that is good fun for all ages.