This touch-and-feel companion to Van Fleet's bestselling Tails (2003) is interactive even before page one, with a pull-tab cover in which animals move letters into place to spell out the title. The book is stuffed with myriad textures, detailed watercolor illustrations, and playful rhymes ("Bite mouth,/ Shout mouth,/ Slobber mouth,/ Slurp!/ Nibble mouth,/ Chew mouth,/ Rude mouths... BURP!"); a hippo's mouth opens wide during said burp--just one of a couple of kid-pleasing gross-out moments. All the animals, from axolotl to tamandua, are labeled on the final spread, after a fold-out surprise ending. It's a buoyant celebration of the animal kingdom's diversity. Ages 2-up. (Aug.)
* This touch-and-feel companion to Van Fleet's bestselling Tails (2003) is interactive even before page one, with a pull-tab cover in which animals move letters into place to spell out the title. The book is stuffed with myriad textures, detailed watercolor illustrations, and playful rhymes ("Bite mouth,/ Shout mouth,/ Slobber mouth,/ Slurp!/ Nibble mouth,/ Chew mouth,/ Rude mouths... BURP!"); a hippo's mouth opens wide during said burp—just one of a couple of kid-pleasing gross-out moments. All the animals, from axolotl to tamandua, are labeled on the final spread, after a fold-out surprise ending. It's a buoyant celebration of the animal kingdom's diversity. - Publishers Weekly, June 28, 2010, *STAR
Discover the hidden talents of more than 30 (supercute) animals with the pull of a tab.—Parenting Early Years, August 2010
PreS—This companion to Van Fleet's Tails (S & S, 2003) encourages interaction from cover to end page. Children begin the safari that celebrates the traits of diverse animals by pulling a tab that allows a giraffe, elephant, rhino, tiger, and alligator to assemble jumbled letters to create the title. On each busy page, more tabs open a platypus egg, enlarge a frog's throat, and wiggle an elephant's ears. Watercolor cartoon critters rock the pages with greedy grins, loving licks, and astonished yelps. The grand finale has a flip up showing every character enjoying a spout ride, thanks to a cheery whale. The animals, from fly to flamingo, are each named-great for vocabulary enrichment. This fun board book is designed to entertain toddlers time and again, but may not survive long in a circulating collection, so get a second copy for storytimes.—Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA
Animals characterized by distinctive features are displayed accordingly, if haphazardly. From heads (woolly llama heads, hairy tamarins, pointy rhinos, beaky toucans and billed platypi) through necks, ears, mouths, tongues, noses and eyes, a variety of animals are showcased, often with touch-and-feel elements and with one animal per spread featuring pull-tab action. Elephant ears twitch, a hippo mouth belches. These tabs and movable parts are sturdy enough for repeated toddler (ab)use. Purists will complain that animals are thrown together with no regard for common habitat, and grammarians will cringe at the syntax and forced rhyme: "Bite mouth, / Shout mouth, / Slobber mouth, / Slurp! / Nibble mouth, / Chew mouth, / Rude mouths... / BURP!" The closing fold-out that features all the animals, labeled, tumbling in a whale's spout is cool, though, even if it's zoologically impossible. (Pop-up. 2-5)
