Lost and Found, What’s That
Sound? By Jonathan Ying. Illustrations by Victoria Ying. Harper. $14.99.
A Band of Babies. By Carole
Gerber. Illustrated by Jane Dyer. Harper. $17.99.
Here are books with
rhythmic, poetic and sonic pleasures aplenty for kids ages 4-8. Both are full
of “sound words,” such as “ding” and “boom” and “toot,” that the youngest
readers, and pre-readers, will enjoy saying aloud – if not during a book’s first
reading, then during its second or third, since both these stories will likely
be requested time and again. The brother-and-sister team of Jonathan and
Victoria Ying has come up with a creative way to show sounds matched with
objects in Lost and Found, What’s That
Sound? There is a lost-and-found department somewhere run by Mr. Hare, who
wears huge round glasses as big as his head and apparently held on by magic (no
earpieces). At the book’s start, shelves and tables show various objects that
animals come in to request one by one – based not on what they look like but on
how they sound. A mouse wants something that goes “toot,” and Mr. Hare offers a
bicycle horn, a toy train or a trumpet; the mouse says what he lost was the
trumpet, and he goes off happily. A beaver is missing something that makes a
“ding” sound, and Mr. Hare has three possibilities: wind chimes, a countertop
bell or a triangle (the metal kind). It is the triangle that went missing, it
turns out, and soon the happy beaver is reunited with it. Then an elephant
shows up and turns out to have lost a piano (no mean feat, even when it is a
very small piano). And a squirrel comes looking for a “boom” maker that proves
to be a bass drum. But then a bat flies in – and he is looking for something
that makes all sorts of sounds. What could that
be? Mr. Hare realizes that it is in the next room – where all the other animals
are practicing as a band, of which the bat is the conductor. The animals’
simple but amusing digital renderings and the enthusiasm with which they bring
forth the sounds of their instruments are winning, and kids are sure to enjoy a
little toot-ding-plunk-boom of their own as they read this book, or have it
read to them.
The band is one of human
beings – small ones – in Carole Gerber’s A
Band of Babies, and here “band” means “group” as well as “instrumental
players.” There are six toddlers in all here, warmly illustrated in
colored-pencil renderings by Jane Dyer. Five of the six march along using
sticks to beat on small drums, while the leader and only named baby – Benny –
plays a small flute as the little ones head out of their day-care center to the
small market next door. There, a smiling, traditionally aproned proprietor
welcomes the babies and the day-care-center’s operator inside, and then – well,
these are babies, after all, curious
and a bit prone to messing things up. Benny pushes a cart in which two other
babies ride, while three walk alongside. Grabbing cartons and cans, the babies
manage to create some chaos: “Bottles bounce./ Boxes tumble./ Toilet paper in a
jumble!” The adults seem not to mind, or their attention is elsewhere, because
soon the babies are opening packages and snacking on – no, not processed sugary
treats or candy, but grapes, bananas, apricots, carrots and yogurt. The eating
scenes may not be realistic, but who knows? They might encourage real-world
little ones to try some of the foods that these make-believe babies so clearly
find delightful. Eventually, leaving a trail of chips and crackers and crumbs behind
them, gulping down juice as they walk, the babies file out past a
now-worried-looking shopkeeper – but their impromptu march is on its last legs.
“Babies wobble./ Babies stoop./ Babies’ eyelids start to droop.” And sure
enough, the babies’ instruments are soon strewn all over the floor of the
day-care center – and so are the babies, who drop off to sleep in a contented
pile. Although not exactly a bedtime book, A
Band of Babies could serve as one for a music-loving child, or could be
used as daytime reading enjoyment for just about any little one.
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