Review by Booklist Review
PreS-Gr. 2. In this lively collaboration by spouses Jenkins and Page, a host of animal movements are sure to leave children wanting to imitate the animals' swinging, waddling, and jumping actions. Jenkins' signature paper collages, boldly set against white backgrounds, illustrate each of two actions per animal; these are preceded and followed by parallel movements performed by different animals. A jacana a waterbird walks on floating lily pads . . . reads a right-hand page. The page turn completes the sentence: then dives to catch a fish. The blue whale pictured alongside dives, too, but the next page reveals that it also swims, just like the adjacent armadillo. The running text arcs around the images, often mimicking the featured movement, which also appears in large, boldface type on each spread. The text ends with an invitation--Move! --accompanied by a picture of bare human feet. Further information about each animal concludes, indicating sizes for readers who may find the pictures' inaccurate scale confusing. Use this as part of a storytime-with-movement, perhaps alongside Karen Pandell's Animal Action ABC (1996). --GraceAnne DeCandido Copyright 2006 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This spring, readers will find all sorts of companions to favorite books. With their usual spare text and dramatic mixed-media collage pairings, Steve Jenkins and Robin Page explore how various animals Move! PW wrote in a starred review of the duo's, I See a Kookaburra!, "Jenkins masterfully manipulates texture and space, playing up the unique palette and architecture of each habitat." Each spread fluidly segues to the next, as young readers watch a monkey "swing" into action on the first spread, then, on the succeeding spread, it perambulates opposite a striking-looking jacana that "walks on floating lily pads." The jacana's dive on the next spread introduces a blue whale, etc. Words describing movement appear in large black type. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-In this eye-popping book illustrated with cut- and torn-paper collages, animals leap, swim, slide, swing, and waddle. Each spread contains one action word and two animals for whom that behavior is typical. One of the animals turns up again on the next page alongside a different creature, both of them representing another kind of motion. For example, on one side a crocodile slithers into the water opposite a snake slithering through leaves; with the turn, the snake climbs a tree and a praying mantis climbs a blade of grass. The information will pique readers' interest. Jenkins uses brief phrases as captions and provides a well-written, concise appendix. A sharp-headed, blue-eyed bird hovers over the caption, "A roadrunner flies, but not too far-." On the next page, the bird, clasping a lizard in its beak, sprints away to the words, "-it would rather run to catch its prey." The end matter explains where the roadrunner lives, what it eats, how large it is, and why it is more suited to running than flying. This book is gorgeous and educational.-Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool, Primary) Creating a lot of commotion about locomotion, twelve animals (including a blue whale, a snake, and a polar bear) showcase a variety of go-verbs as one by one they move across the pages. While each of the animals is unique (emphasized in the back matter covering habits, environment, and size), the movements overlap. A gibbon swings through the jungle but also walks on two legs; a jacana walks on lily pads but also dives in the water; a blue whale dives before it swims. And just as the animals leap and slither and slide, so does the type as each sentence visually echoes the action of the verbs. Jenkins's cut-paper collages stand out against the white background, reinforcing the action and begging listeners to identify both the creatures and the verbs. The appended facts about each animal may appeal more to the reader-aloud than the listeners, but the information allows adults to answer or initiate further inquiry. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Textured collages array themselves across gracious expanses of white space in Jenkins's trademark clean design. As the title suggests, the concept under examination is the way animals move, from a gibbon who "swings through the jungle trees . . . [and] walks on two back legs" to a penguin who "slides--splash!--into the sea . . . and waddles with its colony." Each animal's second mode of locomotion leads to the next animal's first, so the leaping, slithering crocodile gives way to the slithering, climbing snake. It's a characteristically gorgeous offering, but one whose simplicity is occasionally at war with its delivery, given the suggested audience of preschoolers. The jacana (a southern African wading bird), for instance, is presented with no pronunciation guide, and the aforementioned "colony" of penguins is not defined. Each animal is presented in thumbnail at the end, with an accompanying paragraph explaining habitat, habits and size, but these do not serve to fill in the informational gaps in the main narrative. These flaws notwithstanding, there's no denying that this is an extraordinarily pretty and child-friendly package. (Picture book/nonfiction. 2-5) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
