Circles and Squares Everywhere!

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The grand, oversized square format of this book makes up in size what the premise lacks in substance, offering suitable space for Grover's (The Accidental Zucchini) exuberant, full-bleed acrylic paintings. The scant, cumulative text ("Tires and Cars"; "Tires and Cars and Trucks"; "Tires and Cars and Trucks and Roads") says what the pictures show-like Mary Serfozo and David A. Carter's more whimsical There's a Square (Children's Forecasts, Jan. 15), these use the simplest graphic terms to demonstrate the presence of circles and squares in everyday objects. Though there is much repetition of imagery, mostly travel- and traffic-related, Grover's fanciful, full-strength palette gives an ordinary cityscape an improbably colored, toy-like appearance. Lime, lavender and sky-blue skyscrapers tower over turquoise docks where mango and brick-red boats unload square fuchsia cargo. While the pictures may generate initial interest from a range of readers, the overall delivery is best suited to the youngest members of the target audience-those just learning the basics of shapes, and likeliest to appreciate the various views of more or less the same things. Ages 3-5. (Apr.)

School Library Journal

PreS-KGrover, who brought Miss Mable's Table (1994) and The Accidental Zucchini (1993, both Harcourt) to joyous life, tries his hand at yet another concept book. This time, he attempts to point out the presence of circles and squares in everyday objects. It is a fine idea that unfortunately doesn't work. Bright, colorful illustrations depict cars, trucks, boats, etc., but the minimal text confuses rather than clarifies the concepts. For example, tires are used as an example of circles. Right, so far. But then, Grover moves on to cars. Cars themselves, even when drawn somewhat rounded, are not circles. Similarly, trucks have tires, but the trucks are not circles. Yet the text says "Tires and Cars and Trucks" inside a circle. More confusionthe next page shows roads, which, while they may curve, are not circles. Readers will know that for sure when they get to squares, since they are also illustrated by roads. A further problem with the language-illustration dissonance is that geometrically, square means four equal sides, yet the houses and buildings pictured might be rectangular or box-shaped, but most are not really squares. Concept books must be accurate. Nice illustrations alone are not enough to make them work.Linda Greengrass, Bank Street College Library, New York City

Kirkus Reviews

There is no shortage of picture books featuring geometric shapes, but surely this is one of the brightest. Grover (Amazing and Incredible Counting Stories, 1995, etc.) mimics children's art in his use of simple shapes and naive perspective, but composition and the balance of the intense colors are sophisticated. The book begins with circles—tires—on cars, then on trucks, and then as part of an interlacing jumble of "tires and cars and trucks and roads." Squares are shown first as windows, then buildings are added, with roads between. Circles and squares are combined as boxes are loaded on trucks and smokestacks are added to buildings; boats appear, and finally all the elements seen on earlier pages come together in a busy panorama. An eye-catching elementary introduction to the notion, also found in Dayle Ann Dodds's The Shape of Things (1994, not reviewed), that these basic shapes can be found everywhere.