kirkusreviews.com
Riddles give hints about a dog’s life in an idyllic
garden.
The lessons begin on the first page with unnecessary
instruction on how to use the book. Romeo is an anthropomorphic orange mutt
with a white snout, expressive green eyes, and boundless curiosity. On each
spread Romeo asks a question, set in clean, sans-serif type, about something
found in a garden. For example: “In the garden, what has a trunk, branches, and
many leaves?” A page turn reveals the answer—“A tree”—in a larger font on the
upper left. The cheery art with multiple scenes per page has a retro feel, no
doubt due to the fact that French illustrator Grée’s heyday was in the 1960s
and ’70s; these images have been repurposed from earlier books. Details in the
pictures, which feature Romeo, a multiracial cast of children, and various
bugs, animals, butterflies, and birds, add more information. Romeo’s costume
changes frequently. On the page about bees, he is wearing a beekeeper’s veil;
he wears a striped sunsuit on the tree and wheelbarrow pages and, oddly, what
looks like a motorcycle helmet on the page about rain. The formal, pedantic
text of this British import sounds stilted: “Which prickly animals that sleep
curled up might you see in the garden?” The answer, a hedgehog, will likely
puzzle readers in the U.S., where hedgehogs live in zoos, not the backyard.
These explorations are limited. (Board book. 2-4)
Add comment