Demi's Opposites

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

A mirror image is supposed to be a look-alike, but to the geese in this concept book, it's an opposite. A circle and a square are not really physical opposites but conceptual ones, which is a difficult idea for the oldest reader in the target age group. Other more obvious opposites are awake/asleep, front/back, fast/slow, many/few, big/little, etc. Rhymes do not make this more lucid: ``some birds are near/ some birds are far/ it just depends on where you are.'' Throughout, Demi tries, teasingly, to engage the reader: ``a cheetah is fast/ a snail is slow/ if you could choose/ how would you go?'' Ultrabright colors are designed to lure the eye, but simple abstract forms are emphasized and render these pictures dry and distant. And some opposites are inconceivable: black and white appears to be black and gray. The artist's last picture is the message of the mystical auroboros that joins the beginning and the end. A well-meaning but unsuccessful attempt to both educate and entertain. Ages 3-7. (September)

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 3 Demi uses animals, real and imaginary, to illustrate such opposing concepts as black-white, come-go, near-far, rich-poor, and beginning-end, to name a few (many-few). As in her other recent concept books, Find the Animals ABC (1985) and Count the Animals 123 (1986, both Grosset), illustrations are in intense colors and often incorporate hidden pictures. Accompanying rhymes occasionally seem forced, and concepts are occasionally obscured by Demi's preoccupation with rhyme and design. Still, this is likely to prove popular where the earlier titles circulate. Marcia Hupp, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn.