I Play

Find a baby and play together with this board book geared to the attention spans of very young children. Simple uncluttered layouts provide focus. Both this title and the co-published I Get Dressed use animal characters and vocabulary introduced in McPhail's My Mother Goose (2013), making them rare successful board-book adaptations of previously published picture books. As the title suggests, I Get Dressed names items of clothing while this offering reinforces action verbs. McPhail's bear walks with purpose, jumps for joy, and finally is quietly engrossed in reading. With just one word per page, even the youngest children will soon follow suit. Although the animals in I Get Dressed are just as whimsical, it is somewhat less satisfying, perhaps because different animals are used on each page, and the vocabulary concepts are more difficult. Even the animals look bemused to find themselves wearing clothes. The praying mantis wearing gloves is a delightful surprise, however. No one would trust the sly snake wearing that salesman's tie or, for that matter, a fox wearing a dress. McPhail knows and respects children. He manages to draw anthropomorphic animals without making them nauseatingly cute. Despite the brevity of the text, the humor embedded in the illustrations will engage even adults, who will doubtless be asked to "read it again." (Board book. 1-3) COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2015

Baby/Toddler-McPhail brings back the enchanting animals from his My Mother Goose in these simple yet satisfying volumes. In I Play, action verbs are accompanied by images of a winsome bear cub running, jumping, and singing. Pairing words describing articles of clothing with pictures of different creatures, I Get Dressed features a sly but gentle sense of humor (a rabbit wearing an improbably large pair of shoes, a shy looking pig sporting underwear). Cuddly but never cloying and with a vintage flavor that readers will love, these characters are all real winners.

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