Night & Day Studios

I saw this recommended somewhere, but I didn't think the cover looked very attractive. However, I requested it to take a look anyways and I'm glad I did.

The cover is, admittedly, not inspiring. This picture is rather faded - the colors are a lot brighter. However, the art is bland and digital, the animals all have big round eyes, and the whole thing looks like a collage of clip art.

But the real draw of this book is the very sturdy interactive elements. Little readers can "shear" the sheep by moving off her wool (leaving the sheep in a yello-spotted bathing suit), milk "Reba the cow" by swinging a cardboard piece up and down, drawing milk from her teats, and feed the Zora the horse a never-ending stream of carrots and sugar cubes on a spinning dial (no, er, waste is included in this cycle, although that would have been more realistic...) All together, there are four spreads with activities on each, plus the pull tab on the cover. The cardboard is extremely heavy-duty and will stand up to multiple manipulations by small stickers. Pieces are sturdy pull tabs, wheels, and moving cardboard with no flaps or sticking out pieces to pull off.

Verdict: Although the art and text is not particularly memorable, babies and toddlers will enjoy developing their fine motor skills by manipulating the pieces. Librarians will appreciate the sturdy design.

ISBN: 9780763675660; Published 2017 by Candlewick Entertainment; Borrowed from another library in my consortium… (mais)