Snake cake

K-Gr 2-Children will be instantly attracted to the bold, colorful pictures in these books. Each title focuses on three different word families. Pig looks at words containing the letter combinations "ig," "ug," and "at," while Snake features "ake," "oat," and "ant." Peek-through pages transform illustrations to match the changing consonants (e.g., "jig" becomes "dig"). While most of the pages feature only one or two words, the last page of each section is a review of all the words from the family. The bright, flat illustrations outlined in black are reminiscent of the artwork in Dick Bruna's "Miffy" books (Kodansha America), but are more colorful. These titles could be used with beginner readers or as an introduction to rhyming words. Each one includes a page about word families that adults might find helpful. The appealing cartoon covers and die-cut pages guarantee circulation.-Danielle Nicole Du Puis, Forest Ridge Elementary School, Laurel, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Each book introduces three word-families and cleverly uses cut-outs to show the rhyming relationship among some of the words in that family. The culminating phrases using the words introduced are sometimes colloquial rather than literal (for example, ""snake bakes"" depicts a snake sunning itself), but the bright, silly illustrations will likely work as effective mnemonics for beginning readers. [Review covers these Flip-a-word titles: Pig Wig and Snake Cake.] (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.