My Very First Book of Motion

by Eric Carle

You must know that Eric Carle is something of a classic illustrator when it comes to picture books. At least, I think so. He's the one who did The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Well, this board book has the same lively, bright cut-paper collage illustrations. Each one simply shows an animal. The textures and patterns in the paper pieces that make up each picture are wonderful, but what makes this book really fun is that it has a double set of pages, top and bottom, so you can leave an animal page in place on the top and turn through all the words that describe actions on the bottom, until you find the one that matches. It's quite fun, especially as some can be ambiguous- does the caterpillar match with climb or crawl? which animal goes with strut? And you'll never guess which one performs the action flip- a creature I hadn't encountered in a kid's book before!

rating: 4/5 ........ pages, 1986