1: great theme, beautiful illustrations, horrible text
My 2 1/2 year old loves (adores, really) this book. Each double-page spread shows both a specific tool (hammer, drill, shears, etc) and the progression of building an old-fashioned carousel. The pictures are really gorgeous, with lots of detail, and very stylized.
But the text. Oh, the text. The review calls it "poetry." Um, no. Not by a long shot. Not even close. It's quite possibly the worst attempt at personification I've ever read. It's painful to read, and neither I nor my husband can read it without cracking up. Most of the time we skip the text and just talk about the pictures.
It really is a beautiful book, so it's a shame the writing doesn't match the quality of the illustrations.
|