Don’t you just love boots?
This exuberant celebration of polka-dot rain boots lets readers “dress” a cheerful romp of children so that everyone gets to wear their favorite footwear with every outfit, in every activity.
Get your polka-dot boots on!
Synopsis
Don’t you just love boots? This exuberant celebration of polka-dot rain boots lets readers “dress” a cheerful romp of children so that everyone gets to wear their favorite footwear with every outfit, in every activity.
Get your polka-dot boots on!
School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 1—The multicultural cast featured in Engel's digital collages showcases an array of fashion styles, and each boy or girl accessorizes with a pair of polka-dot boots. On every spread, four children are each engaged in a different activity, and all wear a similar item ("Plain coats/Zany coats/Sun coats/Rainy coats"). A shorter, illustrated flap between the full-size pages of each spread transforms bare feet or stockinged feet into polka-dot boot-clad appendages and adds some text about the footwear. The bouncy text presents readers with plenty of adjectives and nouns. Children who enjoy flap books will take an interest in turning the partial pages and transforming the characters' feet, and the artwork offers many little details for them to find.—Lynn K. Vanca, Akron-Summit County Public Library, Richfield, OH
About the Author, Ellen Olson-Brown
ELLEN OLSON-BROWN has always loved children, words, silliness, and fun footwear. As a preschool and kindergarten teacher, she loved seeing her students skip and splash in colorful rainboots no matter what the weather. Ellen’s twin sons loved their own yellow rubber ducky boots so much that they even slept in them at night! Ellen is the author of Ten Stinky Babies, Hush Little Digger, and Bake You a Pie, all Tricycle Press titles. She parks her own blue- and red-flowered rainboots by her front door in Groton, Massachusetts.
CHRISTIANE ENGEL has illustrated many children’s books. About this book she said, “I was really inspired by the fun text, so I created different kid characters for each page—some who like it neat and some who prefer to be muddy, kids with a strong spirit of independence, and kids with a unique or quirky sense of dressing and choosing their accessories.” Christiane lives in London.
PreS-Gr 1—The multicultural cast featured in Engel's digital collages showcases an array of fashion styles, and each boy or girl accessorizes with a pair of polka-dot boots. On every spread, four children are each engaged in a different activity, and all wear a similar item ("Plain coats/Zany coats/Sun coats/Rainy coats"). A shorter, illustrated flap between the full-size pages of each spread transforms bare feet or stockinged feet into polka-dot boot-clad appendages and adds some text about the footwear. The bouncy text presents readers with plenty of adjectives and nouns. Children who enjoy flap books will take an interest in turning the partial pages and transforming the characters' feet, and the artwork offers many little details for them to find.—Lynn K. Vanca, Akron-Summit County Public Library, Richfield, OH
Kirkus Reviews
Olson-Brown's joyful jubilee is a tribute to polka-dot footwear. Jaunty verses utilize an assortment of adjectives to describe types of clothing from hats to pants and everything in between. Each two-page spread features a quartet of barefoot children attired in the finery detailed by the accompanying text ("Ugly pants / Pretty pants / Country pants / City pants," for instance). A flap at the bottom third of the page turns to reveal the concluding refrain (in this case, "A rainbow of polka-dot boots!") and the children's tooties now shod in an array of polka-dotted boots. The color-saturated pages depict children in a bevy of inventive outfits. The simplicity and predictability of the text readily lends itself to jolly read-aloud sessions. The bright primary colors of Engel's acrylic-and-digital collage illustrations are ideally suited for the preschool audience. The novelty of "dressing" the characters in fanciful galoshes adds to the allure. (Picture book. 2-5)
