My Very First Book of Shapes

In his acceptance speech for the ALA Laura Ingalls Wilder medal, Eric Carle referenced that he appreciated a description of his books as being "literature for the not-yet and just-about-to-be-reader" (Carle, 2003, 424). This time, Carle is teaching his almost readers about shapes through reincarnations of familiar characters from his other stories (the watermelon from a caterpillar reminiscent of the infamous Very Hungry, a friendlier version of the Grouchy Ladybug) to demonstrate shapes. Value contrast is applied to make the black shapes on the top part of the split book format jump off the page. A greater variety of shapes than expected (think crescent or squiggle) are introduced. Parents can use the book to engage children in a dialogue about other familiar objects that may be the same shape. It would not be useful in practicing print awareness, because the nature of the book does not encourage a child to begin at the start of the book, but being able to start the book on any page may capture the attention of the young audience.

Just for a little background info on me, I have a BA in English as well as psychology. I worked as a children's library assistant for my first four years out of college. I'm also a mommy to a precious 2 year old daughter, Claire. Claire loves flipping through this book and although I'm not sure how much she's getting intellectually from it, she sure has fun!

It is one of the best introduction to shapes books I've seen. It has a wider variety of shapes than most books do. Each shape is also labeled and with the variety of shapes, beginning readers will be introduced to words they may not have had to read before. For instance, Sean has now learned the word almond. Of course the book has the lovely paper collage illustrations by Eric Carle which gives the book a vibrancies and personality. Finally, the book is a matching game. The pages are cut in the middle with a Carle illustration on one half and a black silhouette on the other half. Readers of the book are asked to match the black shape with the Carle picture. As the shapes aren't in order the book is somewhat challenging than a more traditional shape book.

My 10 month old daughter, Kylie is starting to show interest in the book which means that in another week or so she will be staring at all the pages. It's a good book for children to learn shapes from.

A VERY GOOD BOOK FOR TEACHING SHAPES...MANY SHAPES AND THE HALF PAGES YOU CAN PLAY NUMEROUS GAMES....WHEN THEY GET BORED THEY CAN STOP & PICK IT UP AGAIN TO START WHEREVER... DO NOT HAVE TO START AT THE FIRST PAGE ....GREAT BOOK TO START AT THE BACK & WORK FORWARD