Whose Hat Was That? - Hardcover

PreSchool-K- The strength of these board books lies in the Wildsmiths' bold, crisp artwork. Their small size is both a positive and a negative-they are physically accessible to little hands, but some of the picture clues are too small to identify. In Look Closer, a narrator spots tiny moving objects in various places. A turn of the page and "closer look" reveal some of the bugs and insects that inhabit our neighborhoods. This is the most visually engaging of the quartet. Wake Up, Wake Up is the most effective title. The sun wakes the rooster whose "cock-a-doodle-doo" wakes the goose whose "honk" wakes the sheep, etc. Children will enjoy the animal indentification and sounds. However, this is just one of many competent farm animal books. In What Did I Find? the narrator discovers a variety of animals in unusual places- an elephant in the closet, squirrel in the lunch box, etc. At bedtime, all of the wayward creatures are tucked in the child's bed. The book seems nonsensical and pointless. Whose Hat Was That? features a playful wind blowing hats off of peoples' heads and onto animals across the globe. Eventually it blows them all to the moon. As an introduction to cultural awareness, this is a miserable failure. The ethnic images portrayed are one-dimensional and stereotypical, more insulting than enlightening. Overall, disappointing efforts that won't be missed.
Heide Piehler, Shorewood Public Library, WI
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Rest assured--the exuberant sense of color and love of pattern that characterize Brian Wildsmith's art in such large-format books as The Princess and the Moon translate superbly in these four board-book-size titles for the youngest audiences. The gorgeously dappled backgrounds and intricate designs (for example, snail shells that look like Ukrainian Easter eggs; a sun and a wrought-iron fence both rendered as rectolinear fantasies) will command attenton; simple but imaginative story lines guarantee reader participation. Look Closer , for example, presents a series of pastoral scenes: "I passed wild roses and saw something move. What could it be?" reads one caption. Turn the page, and a detail from the first illustration is enlarged to show three caterpillars curled atop rose leaves. Wake Up invites readers to speculate which farmyard animal is next on the list for reveille; soberly captioned and rigidly geometrical pictures are juxtaposed with fanciful scenes in which the repeated title serves as caption in What Did I Find? ; and Whose Hat conducts a geographical guessing game. A jolly introduction to the pleasures of books. Ages 2-6.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.