Dream Big! Brontorina by James Howe

Brontorina had a dream.

"I WANT TO DANCE! IN MY HEART, I AM A BALLERINA!"

It's no surprise that Madame Lucille, owner and operator, and her ballet-slipper-shod little students are astounded, standing on the stairs of Madame Lucille's Dance Academy and gaping at the would-be pupil presenting herself as a potential danseuse. After all, Brontorina is a big orange brontosaurus, and moreover, as one little pupil points out...

"SHE DOES NOT HAVE THE RIGHT SHOES!"

Clara and Jack insist that she be given a chance. Madame Lucille is a noted dance instructor, but she's never taught a dinosaur. Nonetheless, with the boys and girls in the class keeping a safe distance, at the next lesson she welcomes the eager Brontorina inside her studio, politely asking her large pupil not to squash the others. Madame Lucille orders her somewhat appalled pianist to play for the lesson and leads the troup through their warmup moves:

"PLIE!"

Brontorina's plie is perfect! But her RELEVE', while done with elegant form, forces her head through the ceiling. Her ARABESQUE is daintily done, but her JETE' rips a long rift through the roof!

"WHAT A GRACEFUL DANCER YOU ARE, MY DEAR! BUT I AM AFRAID YOU ARE TO0 BIG!"

But Clara insists that her mother has been making something for Brontorina, and at the next lesson she brings Brontorina a pair of beautiful Size XXXXX ballet slippers. Brontorina is thrilled, but then admits that perhaps she is just too big for Madame Lucille's Dance Academy.

"FIDDLESTICKS!! THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT YOU ARE TOO BIG!

"THE PROBLEM IS THAT MY STUDIO IS TOO SMALL."

And soon the class is back in session with a new location (a pasture) and a new sign--

MADAME LUCILLE'S OUTDOOR DANCE STUDIO~~BOYS, GIRLS, DINOSAURS!

And soon all the young danseurs and danseuses are ready to execute a grand tours jete, in the famed children's author, James Howe's, Brontorina (Candlewick Press). James Howe, the prolific master of droll children's stories with the appropriately whimsical illustrations of artist Randy Cecil, which encourage young readers to think "big''-- and outside the box!

"Text and illustrations work beautifully together in this witty fantasy. . . ." says Booklist in a starred review.

Theorize and Categorize! The Missing Bouncy Ball by Misti Kennison

EMMA HAS LOST HER FAVORITE BOUNCY BALL.

But not to worry! Detective Fox and Goat are on the case, looking for clues and zooming in on any round-ish item they spot at the park and rec center.

There's a ball! But it's a small golf ball, and it's white.

Sorry! Wrong color: their target ball is blue. The big black-and-white soccer ball is too big. The brown football is round in the middle but pointed on both ends.

The billiard ball is the right size, all right, but it lacks one characteristic they seek: it's not soft. Out on the courts, there is a tennis ball that is the right size, but it's fuzzy, not smooth. That basketball over there needs some air. It doesn't bounce at all!

This is a tough case for the two detectives. Will they fail to find the solution?

Hey, wait! What's that in that dog's mouth? Has the canine cracked the case?

"BENJI! MY BALL!"

Despite being out-sleuthed by a pooch, Detectives Fox and Goat take the credit, in Misti Kenniston's The Missing Bouncy Ball: A Fox and Goat Mystery (Fox and Goat Mysteries) (Schiffer Publishing, 2018). A concept book that Sherlock Holmes would love, this board book, with its highly stylized illustrations and careful categorization of the many variations of balls, will appeal to kids who like to apply reason to their calculations.

Although adults may have to explain the trope, Fox and Goat are clearly decked out as detectives, in trench coat and fedora and equipped with magnifying glass and binoculars, but author Misti Kenison pokes a little fun at their stereotypical ratiocinations: ace sleuths Fox and Goat may know what is NOT Emma's bouncy ball, but it takes Benji the Dog's nose to find the missing object. Keniston's appendix, "What Were the Clues to Find the Bouncy Ball?" includes graphics for shape, color, and size, and that quintessential quality--bounciness. This concept book offers many teaching opportunities for parents, teachers, and tots, including the idea of a process of elimination which is "elementary, my dear Watson!"

Point of View: Big Bug by Henry Cole

Who is big? How big is big?

It's all relative in Henry Cole's little essay on perspective in his newest, Big Bug (Little Simon Books, 2014).

Cole begins with a zoomed-in view of part of that popular polka-dotted bug, the ladybug. She looks enormous. But zoom out a little and she's quite small, dwarfed by the intricately veined, bright-green leaf upon which she sits.

But wait! There's more!

Zoom out further and the leaf looks sort of small on its big many-petaled daisy, and our ladybug is but a dot. But what is the daisy, compared to the big dog snoring beside the little flower?

With each page turn, Cole dramatically widens his lens. The dog is not so big next to a huge cow. Cows are really huge, right?

But on the next page Cole provides an even wider view, continuing to widen his view until his eye in the sky shows the whole farm in its proper perspective, large fenced fields, big barn, smaller farmhouse, even smaller cow, and tiny flower. The ladybug has shrunk out of sight! Oh, no!

But in a reassuring return to the micro view, Cole reverses his perspective and zooms back down to show his dog, taking a little nap, with the ladybug snug in her own world.

Notable artist Henry Cole seems to prefer farm settings for his humorous illustrations, but this one offers more than just funny pigs and chickens. It is itself a little lesson in relative size, perspective in mental concept as well as in drawing, narrated with words which teach the concept of size. Seeing the world from above is also a necessary mental concept toward understanding mapping, and this seemingly simple little book offers more than its cheery farm setting. Cole even sets the text within endpapers which reinforce his premise. The opening endpapers feature dozens and dozens of tiny ladybugs, while the ending papers show the now familiar black circle within its red carapace. This one is a mind-opening concept book for tots and an easy introduction to reading for the early emergent reader.