A few sweet new board books should take care of any new-book needs you may have after reading that old favourite yet again!
Rokko
Bitsy
Paola Opal
Simply Read Books
Many of you will recognize the style of Paola Opal’s books at once from the popular Saffy (the giraffe), Ollie (the elephant), and others (Saffy & Perry were even named Top 10 Great Books by the Canadian Toy Testing Council).
She is back with new friends to add the the Simply Read line, this time a raccoon, Rokko, and a beaver, Bitsy. Like the other titles, these are tall, narrow books featuring bold, chunky illustrations in a very simple style well-suited to toddlers.
The stories, too, are simple and sweet, and perfectly pitched for little ones. They are oriented toward budding independence that is supported by reassuring familial bonds, yet manage to avoid the saccharine completely. A nice dose of Canadiana round these out into new favourites I’m pleased to recommend.
Candy 1 to 20
Laurie Wolf & Pan Abrams
Chronicle Books
ISBN: 978 1 4521 0293 1
Authors Wolf & Abrams have laid candy out in the shapes of numbers 1 through 20, making this the sweetest counting book you may ever see – and quite possibly hooking the kid who is just now coming off a Hallowe’en sugar high.
The design is simple and clean, with plain white backgrounds that let the brightly coloured treats pop off the page and make counting easier. On most pages, this will make for great practice, though there are the occasional pages that don’t make it easy – most notably 3, where three strands of shoestring licorice have a tendency to twist and tangle.
Perhaps the best thing here for me is that this book goes to twenty – it is far too rare to find a counting book that goes above ten, and when you do, it often skips from ten into counting by tens – what about 11, 12, 13? My quibble about the number 3 really is a small one, given the overall in this book. It looks great, is sure to catch the attention of the kid you want to count with, and fills what I’ve always thought was something of a gap in counting books. Sweet!