By Audrey Wood and Don Wood
Houghton Mifflin, 2011
16 3/8 inches x 18 inches
$26.99, 32 pages.
This little piggie has gotten a whole lot bigger.
Scaled up to fill out a lap, the Wood's 1991 ode to the English finger-play and nursery rhyme, "This Little Piggy," is even cuter than it was in picture book format.
Each roly-poly pig dances across hands bigger than the readers' (perhaps even than their heads!), allowing readers to be closer to these jolly bovines than ever before.
Children get to zoom in on their outfits, expressions and mischief, and imagine they're climbing on the hand too and cavorting about on finger tips.
Better get a second copy. You'll be itching to frame every page on a child's wall.
By Chris Van Dusen
Chris Van Dusen makes you happy every time you look at his work. So, scaling up one of his classics only heightens that feeling.
Here, the pictures are so big that it feels like they're opening up around readers and the story is playing out before them.
In this 2009 gem, a circus ship runs aground off the coast of Maine, and the cruel circus owner saves himself, but leaves the animals to fend for themselves.
After paddling all night, the bedraggled animals find themselves on an idyllic island. At first the people there are wary of the animals, but soon the animals win them over: the tiger runs into a burning shed to save a girl.
Overnight, the villagers learn to treasure the animals, and they live together side by side. Then one day, the circus owner storms in to take his animals back, and the villagers help hide the animals and lead him astray.
Dusen's search-and-finds are a delight scaled up. Readers feel pulled into scenes to figure out where each animal is hidden.
Pass this one on to a reluctant reader and he'll be laying on his tummy on the floor soaking up every page.
Pass this one on to a reluctant reader and he'll be laying on his tummy on the floor soaking up every page.
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