From School Library Journal
PreSchool-K-An appealing group of children is on its way to school when someone gets the idea to leapfrog the way there and-"spring-boink, spring-sproink"-everyone joins in. Sparked by one another's inspirations, they think of other imaginative things to do-they make up songs, draw a classmate dancing like a pony, build a house with blocks, pretend they are birds, eat their lunch like tigers, and, finally, head home to dream up another day. The simplicity of the story is enriched with rhythmic, playful language and the repetition of "we do" as the children transform everyday activities into creative ideas and action. The exuberant art, combining Prismacolor markers and gouache, shows colorfully dressed youngsters bursting with energy. Superimposed over several scenes are bold drawings of their imaginings-frogs of yellow, green, and turquoise; singers reminiscent of characters from The Mikado; prancing horses; and dramatic buildings. The final spread is an eye-popper as three sleeping children dream away, one wrapped in the arms of a panda, another plucking the strings of an instrument, and the central figure morphing into a magnificent butterfly. A glorious book.
Marie Orlando, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NYCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
PreS-Gr. 1. In
The Squiggle (1996), a class of preschoolers created an imagined world from a ribbon's swirl. In this joyful follow-up, the class finds more magic in simple, everyday activities, from entering school to eating lunch noodles. The spare, poetic text follows a pattern: a child makes a suggestion ("Let's eat up our noodles like tigers!") and the group leaps into action. The words crackle with rhythm and sound ("scribba-dibba," "floosh-flash," "slip, slop, slurp") that is perfect for read-alouds, and the images beautifully extend the story's tone of freewheeling creativity in uncluttered, Asian-influenced pictures showing real and imagined worlds together. On one spread, for example, jumping frogs, rendered in just a few elegant gouache strokes, overlay bright marker drawings of leap-frogging children. With minimal words and colored lines, this title perfectly captures preschoolers' exuberant energy and the limitless fun they have when they work together.
Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
