My Very First Book of Animal Homes

by Eric Carle

Like My Very First Book of Motion, this board book has every page cut across horizontally, so it's really two sets of pages, top and bottom, that turn independently. It allows the reader to mix-and-match, in this case to pair up various animals with their homes. It's really cute and clever, with fantastic cut-paper collage illustrations. My daughter doesn't quite have the patience for this book though, and often gets frustrated when she's turning pages ahead, but the matching animal is on a prior page we already passed. But sometimes she'll sit through most of it. She recognizes most of the animals, and is beginning to learn that the nest goes with bird, barn with horse, etc. I find the empty turtle shell matching up to a naked-backed turtle rather odd and a bit disturbing. Yes, a turtle's home is in his shell, and I've heard the saying that the turtle carries his house around with him. But you'd never see a live turtle without his shell. I think it would die. So seeing a turtle with no shell on its back is strange to me.

The bat is really cute.
Rating: 4/5 ........ 20 pages, 1986 ........ find it at