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________________ CM . . . . Volume XIX Number 6 . . . . October 12, 2012
excerpt: Say “hello” to Checkers. (From Checkers and Dot.) There go the penguins, marching one, two... (From Checkers and Dot at the Zoo.)
Bye-bye,
Checkers! Bye-bye, Spot!
Both of these board books serve as acceptable introductions to the world of books, and they will be appreciated by their very young audience who will then move on to more sophisticated board books. According
to promotional materials included with the books, two new titles,
Checkers
and Dot at the Beach
and Checkers
and Dot on the Farm
will be published Spring 2013. Recommended. Dave Jenkinson, CM’s editor, lives in Winnipeg, MB.
To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca. Copyright © the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.
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Checkers
and Dot
and Checkers
and Dot at the Zoo
are the first two books in a new board book series aimed at
babies and tots. The illustrations in the series use only two
colours, black and white. Checkers
and Dot,
the first book, simply introduces the series’ continuing
characters who are illustrated in a cartoon-like fashion.
Checkers, a boy, wears a checkered shirt while Dot, a girl and
presumably Checker’s sister, wears a black dress with white
polka dots. Their cat, Stripsey, is a white cat with black
stripes, and their white dog, Spot, has, of course, black spots
of various sizes on his body. When first introduced, the
characters are presented against a background that matches their
names, eg. Dot is on a black background that has white dots.
Checkers
and Dot,
an essentially plot-free story, ends with a double page spread
that has the four characters facing the reader and waving while
the text reading:
Checkers
and Dot at the Zoo
find the siblings, sans
pets, on their first adventure as they go to the zoo There, the
pair see, in turn, a panda, a zebra, a polar bear, a gorilla and
her baby, and an adult penguin with five baby penguins, all
animals whose natural colourings lend themselves to Lum’s
two colour palette. Each animal is presented on a pair of facing
pages, and Torres’ text for this book is slightly more
sophisticated than that found in Checkers
and Dot.
Again, Lum uses a patterned background. For instance, the panda
is presented against a stand of bamboo while the polar bear
stands amongst falling snowflakes; however, with the exception of
the text accompanying the zebra pages (“See the zebra
covered with stripes.”), no direct text reference is made
to these patterns.