Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Red, Blue Peek-a-Boo!
Illustrator: Katie Saunders
Novelty Board Book
For ages 4 to 6
Tiger Tales, 2014 ISBN: 978-1589255821
For years books with lift-the-flaps and other novelty features were only made for older children because such books were relatively fragile. No one was creating such books for preschool and kindergarten children. Now there are quite a few novelty books being created for little children, and many of them make use of clever novelty features to make it interesting for children to learn simple concepts.
In this title the author and illustrator have created a colorful and engaging book that explores colors. A color is featured on each page, and we see an illustration showing a scene that focuses on that color. Then, under a flap that has a number of die-cut windows cut into it, children will find another scene where the color is predominately displayed again. Each illustration is accompanied by a line of text. The text on flap connects to the sentence that is behind it to give readers a pair of rhyming couplets.
For example, on the blue page we see a sandy beach, and there are a number of colorful shells lying on it. Through almond-shaped die-cut windows that are on the surface of a large blue shell we see that there is something blue behind the flap page. We read about how “A pretty BLUE shell nestles on the sand…” When we lift the flap we see the words “As a happy BLUE whale that swims past the land,” and sure enough there is an illustration of a blue whale happily swimming along the shoreline.
In all, nine colors are explored, and on each page children will meet colorful animal characters of all kinds. The final two pages offer children a spread where characters and objects from each of the color pages reappear, and children can use this page to practice what they have learned.
