Color of the Seasons: One Yellow Sun by Michael Arndt

The countdown begins with ten and goes down again as far as it can go, ending with zero, a nice round number. (We'll keep negative numbers for another numerical day!)

First comes a set of ten silvery beads, then nine round rocky pebbles in a conservative gray, and eight equally rounded raisins. (Raisins are more oval shaped, but that's a book for another day.)

Following the sweetness of the raisins, it's please pass the seven green peas! Rolling out next are blueberries, six of them, and yes, they are blue! Then we see five rounded, rollable purple grapes, four pink and spherical, burst-able bubbles, three red bouncy balls, two orange (of course) oranges warmed to summer sweetness by one bright yellow sun, and hiding, somewhere out of that sun... perhaps in Ultima Thule...

Zero snow-white snowballs.

Author-artist Michael Arndt draws upon his graphic imaging chops and a little die-cut, board-book wizardry to make each one of the pages count, in his brand-new One Yellow Sun (M books: see + read) (Andres MCMeal, 2020), with natural colors as seen in something round, in his introductory concept book which covers shapes and colors through the seasons. For the littlest color-lover, this is a tasty combination done with warmth, bright hues, and a surprise on each page as it is turned. A brightly designed "graduation" page for emergent readers takes youngsters up and down again numerically and verbally. Early preschoolers will enjoy guessing what comes next beneath each die-cut color clue, and beginning readers will be able to identify the word for each rounded object. Says Kirkus Reviews, "Simplicity at its finest—-don’t miss this innovative board book that’s as beautiful as it is educational.”

Shaping Up! Round As A Tortilla A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Greenfield Thong

ROUND ARE THE CAMPANAS THAT CHIME AND RING.

ROUND ARE THE NESTS WHERE SWALLOWS SING.

I CAN NAME MORE ROUND THINGS. CAN YOU?

Books about shapes are many and varied, essential for preschool education when youngsters learn all the usual geometric shapes--round, square, triangular, rectangular, and sometimes more, done in varying styles of art and in degrees of complexity.

Roseanne Grenfield Thong's Round Is a Tortilla: A Book of Shapes (Chronicle Books) includes all the usual shapes with a twist--some engaging lessons in Spanish along the way. Most kids know what a tortilla is--a  round form of bread made from corn or wheat, crisp or soft, and often wrapped around some sort of filling, as in a taco or quesadilla. But many other things have something round to them, a trumpet's bell, a bird's nest, a sombrero's brim, and the top of a stew pot. And within the jolly rhyming lines, students are challenged to come up with other things that they know are round, and artist John Parra's folklorish illustrations provide many examples of the featured shape on each page.

Other shapes included are the square (cuadrado) illustrated by windows and photos and even the town's central square downtown. Rectangular flags fly from on high. Triangles turn up as chips for dips or sails that move sailing ships. And ovals--they can be seen in the shapes of solid things, like eggs, (huevos), olives, and lots of beans!

HOW MANY MORE DO YOU KNOW?

With a glossary of Spanish words used in the text and clever rhyming lines, this book is a novel introduction to shapes with illustrations featuring to puzzle out while picking up a few new words. Share this one with Thong and Parra's companion book, Green Is a Chile Pepper: A Book of Colors.

Shaping UP! Circles and Squares (Baby Einstein) by Scarlett Wing

Cat is blowing bubbles!

All these bubbles are CIRCLES!

But along comes Lily with some blocks! Can Cat finish this SQUARE?

He can!

Cat is kept busy as his friends appear one by one and challenge him to go on to more complex shapes. Zen asks Cat to paint a triangle, and Neptune tempts Cat to dig for treasure, a golden star, while Atlas shows him how to cut out a heart, and Gig teaches him to find a diamond-shaped kite.

It's quite a challenge for those baby geniuses in Scarlett Wing's Baby Einstein: Circles and Squares (Sturdy Lift a Flap Board Book) (Cottage Door Press, 2018), as little fingers are encouraged to find the shapes under the robust flaps in this little shaped board book, which also works in patterns and colors and counting activities along the way. Artist Dan Crisp contributes the colorful cartoon characters which continue as part of the early learning fun. Pair this one with Wing's Baby Einstein: Big and Little (Sturdy Lift a Flap Board Book).

Shaping Up! Shaping Up Summer by Lizann Flatt

What if nature knew numbers like you?

If you were near,
this fact would appear:
the Sun is actually
the shape of a SPHERE.

But the Sun is so far
from where we all are
that we see it as a CIRCLE

(Did you know that it's a star?)

Author Lizann Flatt's last book in her seasonal Math in Nature series, Shaping Up Summer (Math in Nature) (Owlkids Books, 2014), beguiles the child into seeing the shapes, symmetry, and trajectories of summer plants and animals.

In one eye-pleasing double-page spread devoted to the concept of symmetry, she shows a spotted newt twisting and curling to climb a log  and one lying out flat and asks, "Which newt is symmetrical?" Children are encouraged to spot other symmetries--a ladybug's carapace, a painted turtle, a swimming fish seen from above,  a dragonfly and water spider, and a floating water lily bloom.  The water lily offers both symmetry and asymmetry, depending on how the eye sees it.

In another spread, a hummingbird moth, grasshopper, and katydid make their ways across the page, and the child is asked to trace their path, over, under, above, and below the plants which tempt them.

Plane figures and solid figures abound as well in Ashley Barron's ebullient cut-paper collages in a summertime display of colors, from warm sunny yellows and blooming pinks to cool blues and deep-shaded greens. Barron's artwork gives this one its visual pizazz and movement as it encourages the child to look more closely at each illustration. Author Flatt seems to assume that children have already encountered the simple mathematical concepts she discusses and instead proffers enticing opportunities for reinforcement of these skills. Humorous touches include ghost crabs improbably sculpting cones. pyramids, and cylinders out of seaside sand and an orb spider spinning out a couple of steamships setting sail in her web. The author includes an appended Nature Notes with thumbnail sketches and information about featured animals--dolphins, coyotes, skunks, puffins--for a bit of nature study as well.

Best for adult-and-child sharing, Shaping Up Summer (Math in Nature) concludes the cycle in Flatt and Barron's four-seasons series, which also include Counting on Fall (Math in Nature), Sizing Up Winter (Math in Nature), and Sorting Through Spring (Math in Nature). (read my reviews here).

Picking the Patch: Pick A Circle, Gather Squares by Felicia Sanzari Chernesky

"ON OUR HAYRIDE TO THE PATCH,
WHILE WE BUMP ALONG WE'LL MATCH
DIFFERENT SHAPES TO WHAT WE SEE.
WILL YOU HARVEST THEM WITH ME?"

A dad and two kids are off on a October expedition--not to the playground or to get haircuts, but to the farm to fetch home some pumpkins. They climb out of their car and into a hay wagon pulled by a big green tractor and bounce off down the lane, following the signs and looking for shapes. Even the sign that says PUMPKINS is a rectangle, and there are rectangles all around, bits of bark flaking from the tree trunk, hay bales, the lattice on the wagon's sides, even the sides of houses. Circle shapes are everywhere, too--apples, the top and bottom of apple baskets, wagon wheels, and even black spots on a white cow.

But there are more esoteric shapes, as well. Hen's eggs are oval, and so are winter squash on the vine. Kites are diamonds in the sky, and with a pumpkin on board, Dad can carve a triangle for a nose, and some stars for its eyes.

HEXAGONS IN HONEYCOMBS,
AND CHICKEN WIRE WHERE FOXES ROAM.

And at last those round pumpkins for round pumpkin pies are on their way home with the kids in Felicia Sanzari Chernesky's Pick a Circle, Gather Squares: A Fall Harvest of Shapes (Albert Whitman, 2013), with verses with verve and a bright autumnal palette from Susan Swan's jolly farm collages to provide the lessons in shapes and appreciation for autumn produce as well. A good pick for prep for the fall farm trip or a field trip to the pumpkin patch for primary classes and an introduction to the traditional foods of Thanksgiving as well.

Whatchamacallit? I Am Blop! by Herve' Tullet

BLACK BLOP

WHITE BLOP

 !POLB REVOCSID

BLOP is a blob--a four-lobed blob, a shape that can be almost anything the mind can imagine--a flower, a cloud, a butterfly, a Blop family, a classroom of blops in neat rows, what-ever-you-want blops.

Herve' Tullet's latest, I am Blop! (Phaidon, 2013) explores what can be done with a faithful shape like the blop. Blue blop teaches colors with an acetate overlap of yellow which yields a green blop which works both ways, forward and back. Pink and purple overlays play with a touch of red.

There are blops with faces, blops becoming animals, broken blops, measled blops, even invisible blops, blops as famous paintings, blops seen on a mirrored page. There are fill-in-the-blank blops and even punch-out blops that kids can take away to put into their own blop stories.

Herve' Tullet's books play with the very idea of the book, extending the two-dimensional page into the non-dimensional world of the imagination, as he did in in his 2011 best-seller Press Here (see my review here) and his equally imaginative The Book with a Hole. Tullet's little books have broken new ground--genre-breaking, interactive books with deceptively simple art on traditional white pages which nevertheless become interactive when mixed with the imagination of the child.  This one is no exception.

 Publishers Weekly puts in "... even the format is a novelty," and Kirkus Reviews quips "Tullet will intrigue children and encourage them to think outside the blop."

Deep In My Heart: The Shape of My Heart by Mark Sperring



THIS IS THE SHAPE WE ARE
THE SHAPE OF YOU AND ME.
THIS IS THE SHAPE OF OUR EYES
AND THESE ARE THE SHAPES WE MIGHT SEE.

Mark Sperring’s recent The Shape of My Heart (Bloomsbury, 2012) takes on the complex task of introducing a complex intellectual concept–that of generalization, going from the concrete to the general in recognizing shapes. Not the usual book of shapes like circles and square, this one begins with a particular shape–cup and saucer–and specific story-book shapes such as dragons, clocks, and apples.

The narrative then jumps to a variety of shapes, “things that chirp,” birds which tweet and fly, things that are cold (popsicles), and things that are sweet (strawberries), things that live in the zoo, things that go, and things to hug (teddy bears)!

Author Sperring and illustrator Alys Paterson, who favors strong pastels against a contrasting white ground, also bring the shape concept home–to the shape of a mouth and of eyes themselves, and in a nod to the upcoming Valentine season, the shape ofthe heart.

THIS IS THE SHAPE OF MY HEART--OF THINGS DOWN DEEP INSIDE.

Wherever You Look! See a Heart, Share A Heart by Eric Telchin

CATCH A HEART.

KEEP A HEART.

HOLD A HEART.

HIDE A HEART.

Hearts are everywhere--in the shadow of a butterfly's closed wings, in a dapple of sunlight on a wall, in the shape of fallen leaves, in the patch of lichen on a tree's trunk, in the curve of a seashell in the sand.

A wise art teacher once said that learning to do art is really just learning to SEE, and that simple but profound truth is the theme of Eric Techin's heart-themed See a Heart, Share a Heart (Dial Books, 2012). Once Techin saw a heart in a puddle of melted chocolate ice cream, he photographed it, and soon his collection of "found" heart shapes in the world around him began to grow. In this photo essay of hearts, we see accidental hearts everywhere, in the pattern of cracks in asphalt and in concrete, in a coil of discarded wire and a tangled green garden hose, a carelessly dropped ribbon or rubber band, an abandoned shoelace, a brown splotch on a leaf, a scrap of red plastic, the wings of a white moth at rest.

Telchin first uploaded his photographs to boyseeshearts.com, where classrooms of kids also posted their found hearts, and then he assembled his collection into a heartfelt photo essay published just in time for the pre-Valentine's season. It's not a novel idea: there are other found-picture photo books featuring, for example, the letters of the alphabet, and many clever books for the holiday that make creative use of the heart shape (see my review of Michael Hall's ingenious and popular My Heart Is Like a Zoo here.) but Telchin's novel use of selectively "seen" hearts is unique, a special one to add to the repertoire of the heart-y season.

Roundup! Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman

A SPIRAL IS A GROWING SHAPE.
IT STARTS SMALL
AND GETS BIGGER,
SWIRL BY SWIRL.

It's not every day that a new book makes a reviewer jump (or in this case swirl) with joy. But Joyce Sidman's and Beth Krommes' new Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature (Houghton Mifflin, 2011) is such a book. Newbery winner (for Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems (Caldecott Honor Book, BCCB Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book Award))) Joyce Sidman provides a lyrical text which only adds to the striking beauty of Caldecott artist (for The House in the Night) Beth Krommes' lissome illustrations, gloriously done on bright white in amazingly detailed scratchboard and watercolor wash, inspiring wonder at the beauty and function of the nature's amazing spiral.

IT TWISTS THROUGH THE AIR
WITH CLOUDS ON ITS TAIL.

IT STRETCHES STARRY ARMS
THROUGH SPACE.
SPINNING AND SPARKLING,
FOREVER EXPANDING.

From the protected curl of a hibernating snake or chipmunk, to the unfolding wonder of a fiddlehead fern, from the tactile and visual beauty of a spiral seashell to the delicate tendrils of a growing vine, the spiral is one of nature's finest architectural creations, one which protects the threatened hedgehog and gives the New World monkey his astonishingly strong prehensile tail.

From a delicate orb spider's web to the power of a breaking wave, spirals are everywhere, present in the terrible beauty of the tornado and the star-studded structure of the Milky Way galaxy which is our place in space. The spiral serves us, fills us with awe, and with its curvaceous form delights the human eye with its mathematical perfection.

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature is a unique and magnetic picture book, one bound to be in contention for medal honors, and one deserving of an honored place in any collection, private or public.

Dotty about the Spotty? Lots of Dots by Craig Frazier

SOME DOTS ARE BIG.

SOME DOTS ARE SMALL.

SOME DOTS FLOAT.

AND SOME DOTS FALL.

And some books, like Craig Frazier's Lots of Dots, (Chronicle Books, 2010) are way more than they seem at first glance.

Sure, it sports an eye-catching cover, with an amorphously-shaped, clown-like figure apparently juggling colorful balls, and inside its bright, primary colored illustrations are innately appealing and its spare text, one line per page, turns out to form pleasantly rhythmic quatrains.

But break out all this content and you have a book of wide appeal and many uses. The "dots" are actually circles, which in the author-illustrator's imagination can be many things: drums (big), dots on a ladybug's carapace (small), soap bubbles (floating), and apples (falling), so that this book becomes a useful shapes concept book throughout. These dots can be scoops of ice cream for licking or balls for kicking, a sun shining or wheels for skateboard fun. After one run-through of this book, toddlers will be able to point out the dots on each page and older kids will want to spot "dots" everywhere, indoors and out, just as the book promises. (How many circles can we spot while we walk down this block?) Frazier helpfully finishes up the book with a double-page spread of just such "dotty" shapes from everywhere to spark your own I-spy game.

But, wait! There's MORE! The human figure assumes a different color on each page, making each page an opportunity for teaching color concepts to youngsters. (Name all the colors on this page!) Older kids, having heard the first quatrain, should be eager to guess what the second set of rhyming "dots" are going to be. (Can we make up a brand-new four-line rhyme about circular things for ourselves? It's easier than you think...)

Some dots are soft (marshmallows).
Some dots are hard (dinner plates).
Some dots are inside (sofa pillows).
Some are in the yard (soccer balls).

You don't have to be poet laureate to dash off a few among yourselves, and that's always a good time to talk about rhyming words; after all, if you figure out one, just change the beginning letter and you can read them all. Hey, you're teaching reading here!

Thinking skills? How many "dotty" things to eat can we name? Cheerios, marshmallows, carrot pennies, gumballs? What "dotty" things do we wear? Buttons? Rings on our fingers? Holes for our shoelaces? Bracelets? Ponytail holders? How about artwork? How about a collage of "dotty" things cut from old magazines? What "dotty" things can we make from play clay? Snowmen, anyone, with little "dots" for facial features and buttons down his front? There are lots of possibilities with this clever little book at your fingertips.

As a bonus, Frazier's text is easy enough for lapsitting tots to follow with cues from the adult reader, but basic enough for beginning readers (thanks to the rhyming words) to breeze through on their own.

In other words, Lots of Dots, is a multitasking book, one that can earn its keep on a child's or classroom's bookshelf for a variety of uses. Pair this one with Lindsay George's recent essay on all things round, Maggie's Ball, reviewed here. Going "dotty" can be lots of fun!