The Big Book of Words and Pictures

PreS-K—This oversize board book executes its premise with far more panache and sly humor than most typical word books. Each page focuses on an area of a child's world, from rooms in the house to areas in the community (curiously, though, neither school nor day care is represented). Expressive animal characters stand in for people, but their activities and the objects they use, from hairbrushes to running shoes, all relate solidly to a youngster's experience. Cheery pen-and-ink illustrations pop off the background, which makes effective use of white space, and everything is labeled. Small stories hide on each page, as when two small animals eat cookies while a large bird follows behind them vacuuming up the crumbs. Könnecke applies the same humor to cycles; the bottom of one spread shows a sequence of vehicles by age, beginning with a baby buggy and progressing through bicycles, a motorcycle, and a car as the baby bird inside grows up, and then moving to a walker and a wheelchair. Youngsters will enjoy all there is to see in this book, and it's ideal for encouraging vocabulary building.—Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD