THE FARMYARD Stefan Anastasiu. Toronto, ON: James Lorimer, 1985. unpaged, accordion-folded board, $3.95. ISBN 0-88862-820-X. Little Big Books. CIP. THE SEA Philippe Beha. Toronto, ON: James Lorimer, 1985. unpaged, accordion-folded board, $3.95. ISBN 0-88862-817-X . Little Big Books. CIP. THE GARDEN Marie-Louise Gay. Toronto, ON: James Lorimer, 1985. unpaged, accordion-folded board, $3.95. ISBN 0-88862-819-6. Little Big Books. CIP. THE FRIDGE Pierre Pratt. Toronto, ON: James Lorimer, 1985. unpaged, accordion-folded board, $3.95. ISBN 0-88862-818-8. Little Big Books. CIP. Subject Headings: Vocabulary-Juvenile literature. Word recognition-Juvenile literature. Preschool-grade 1 / Ages 3-6 Reviewed by Elizabeth Lockett. Volume 14 Number 3 1986 May These sixteen-page board books fold neatly and fasten with a Velcro patch. On one side, there is a picture featuring the topic of the book; on the other, there are key words with illustrations for many of the objects in the fold-out picture. A nursery school teacher who examined these books thought that the small pictures that helped identify objects were a useful teaching feature. I consider The Garden to be the best of the four. The picture shows a small girl a small boy, and a baby in a vegetable garden. Two rabbits are about to munch on some carrots, a mole has dug a tunnel near the beets, and a racoon is enjoying an ear of corn. On the back, clearly identifiable pictures of vegetables are arranged in the order in which they appear in the main picture. A criticism would be that there is no sense of season; young asparagus, corn, and peppers are all growing together. The Sea is a cartoonish drawing, showing a fisherman in a small runabout being taken for a ride by a whale. A diver has a confrontation with an octopus and a huge lobster skips on the ocean floor. The picture would repay careful examination and word sharing with a child. The Farmyard shows recognisable animals, but the turkey wears glasses and the rabbit mother wears a bonnet. A cartoon rat laughs in a boot. A farmyard like this would be a farmer's nightmare. The Fridge is the least successful of these books. The contents of the fridge are a mess. A mouse peers out of the cheese, a small boy, with huge head and tiny hands and feet, tries to reach a jar of something. It is difficult to identify items in the picture from the key on the back. These board books are well made physically. Some people prefer realistic pictures in pre-school books, others will enjoy the cartoonish pictures in some of these books, and children who see cartoons daily on television should be able to interpret the pictures. Elizabeth Lockett, Niagara Falls, ON.