Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews

Tushes and Tails

Tushes and Tails

Stephane Frattini
Novelty board book
For ages 3 to 5
Sterling Children's Books, 2012   ISBN: 978-1402779800

Usually, when you are introduced to someone, you shake their hand and look into their face. When you see an animal for the first time you notice its eyes, ears, and the color and shape of its body. The one thing you don’t do is look at its tush!

In this clever and amusing novelty book, you get to meet twenty-four very different animals and your first view of them is a rear view, a tush and tail view. The author challenges you to look at the photos of the tushes and identify who they belong to. Not wanting to keep us in suspense, the author then gives us the opportunity to see if our guesses were right. All we have to do is to lift up each of the tush photos to see of photo of the whole animal, read its name, and read some information about that animal.

For example, on the second page we see a tush that has a funny curly tail attached to it. Now what animal has a tail with a curl in it? When you lift the tush photo you see a photo of two piglets. The text that goes with the photo tells us that pigs love to “roll around and flop in the mud.”

Children who like animals are going to enjoy trying to figure out who the tushes and tails in this book belong to. Some of the animals will be familiar while others will not.