Saturday, March 7, 2015

Review: Wild About Shapes by Jeremie Fischer

9781909263383

I have seldom been so excited and so disappointed by a book.

Disappointed, only because the format - spiral bound - works great for the book, but not so much for library wear and tear. Ah, well, I guess I'll just have to keep this one for myself!

Please excuse the lousy-quality photographs, but I can't tell you about this without showing you the pages. When we first open the book, we see some colorful, abstract blobs:


I showed this to Sheridan and Logan, and they decided the yellow blob might be a chicken, but didn't come up with much for the blue. Then I turned the plastic yellow overlay to the other side, and we got...


they were SO excited! They grabbed the book away and 'read' the rest of it together. Now that they had the idea, they tried to guess from the original shapes what the combination would produce. Some (the butterfly) were easier than others (the fish). In some cases, it turned out to be the white space that we were looking at:


So much fun! We had been talking a lot lately about color combinations, so this fit right in. While it wouldn't last here at the library, the pages are heavy enough that I think it would do okay in a classroom, where a teacher could remind students to treat it gently. Kids will naturally want to try their hand at making their own pictures this way - older kids may be challenged by the white space aspect. Even if you can't work in an extension activity, this is sure to keep little ones busy for a while, just flipping back and forth! A fun offering from Flying Eye Books - a newer publisher that I have been very impressed with lately.



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