From Publishers Weekly
In this book, Hoban offers three chances to see ordinary objects in an unusual setting. First, a cutout in a blacked-out page frames a detail on the next page. What is that wrinkled, hairy gray thing? Turn the page and see the back end of an elephant; turn one more page and there it is in its entirety, nosing through some grass. An odd dingy square is really a lamb and a geometrical-object is the neck and frets of a guitar. Wordlessly, Hoban entertains as she provides her apparently random choice and order of the objects. Unlike many of her other books ( 26 Letters and 99 Cents , most recently), this one doesn't allow for many re-readings. Once children know what they are looking at, the book becomes a catalogue of familiar items, with Hoban's characteristically enticing photos, offered in the hope that readers will garner an appreciation of all textures and patterns. Ages 3-up.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2 Tana Hoban adds number three to her textless collections of photographs with little square cut outs that allow only a teasing glimpse of texture to activate children's imaginations (Look Again! Macmillan, 1971 and Take Another Look Greenwillow, 1981). These nine objects are in full color in a larger format, and there is an enhanced sensitivity to the composition of each photograph. But with all the world to capture on film, it is unfortunate that there is no theme, or any ensnaring visual logic to the choices of subjects. Instead children see some animals (the elephant again, of course), a couple of things from the vegetable kingdom, and a couple of manufactured objects. Nor is there a pattern to the way the two photographs that identify each object are exploited. For some, the second picture shows the object in use (boy smells rose; man plays guitar; pumpkin becomes jack-o-lantern). But the lamb doesn't become a rug nor the collie even an active sheep herder. In other words, Hoban missed much of the poetry possible in both choosing and organizing her work. What she presents in her white-framed photographs on glossy black pages are good examples of the genre (the sensuousness of the O'Keeffe-ish rose is particularly strong). By now readers expect more of her. Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.