Give and Take

Here is a delightfully playful and imaginative book for young children. The game begins with an invitation to ‘take’ from the first page what looks like a red ball and to place it, as if were a piece of a jigsaw, in the hand on the next page where there is the word ‘give’. The next task is to ‘break’ a square into two triangles and ‘build’ them into the roofs of a blue and a yellow house. And so the playful breaking and making continues throughout the book. There are some wonderful surprises: a black circle with the caption ‘Now you see me …’ reveals a mirror.  Elsewhere we uncover a mouse and an ant. At the end of the book children and the sharing adult are asked to play their way back to the beginning so that it is ‘ready for the next time’. What do children learn? They are introduced to the vocabulary of opposites in an enjoyable way. They also learn about following instructions, about different shapes and about careful manipulation.  This is a hugely attractive creation – powerfully illustrated with intense primary colours and in transition from toy to book.