Colors, Numbers, Letters


I'm starting to think these all-in-one books are all marketing and no meat. 

THREE PROS
*Despite what I said above, there is something to be said for having these concepts fit easily in the palm of your hand  
*The closing color page (where all of the different mice play together) is cute and could be ambitiously viewed as an early nod to racial harmony
*Having the green mouse pull a four-leaf clover in a field of regular clovers shows what Leo Lionni could have done elsewhere with a little more effort

THREE CONS 
*There are wordless books that make you excited to provide your own dialog on every page and then there is this 
*More on this point: if you're gonna start the book with colors sans verbal description, then why not stick with that theme (by having the mice pose in symbol form) instead of putting numbers and letters all over the last two thirds of it 
*The rodents enlisted for "7" and "8" are just standing there -- comes off as lazy since the rest of the numbered examples have them interacting in some fashion

ONE DAD'S OPINION
Can you blame Lionni for grabbing the low-hanging fruit of kidlit?  Not really.  A guy's gotta pay his bills, yo!  But that doesn't mean KBR Nation has to take a bite out of this poisoned apple.  No.  Instead, you can get all the colors, numbers, and letters you'll ever need from works such as this, that, and the other.
    

Buy / Borrow / Donate / DESTROY



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Your destroy review makes me want to read this book because Leo Lionni is one of my favorite writter/illustrator although I haven't read this one. (My sun is now 5 and I don't think I will buy this book-under 3 years old but I will look into it when I go to library...)
Some destroy rated titles are really famous here in Korea even though I agree on some points you made. And I dare to challenge your review on my children's picture book - it is fine to give me destroy or no review at all.

My email address is imaginebrothers@gmail.com and if you are willing to waist a little time to review my book, I will be happy to send my book in mobi or PDF format.

You can completely ignore this if this bothers you.
Thank you.