Making Faces

January 30, 2017
A repeating, baby-directed text introduces five emotions—happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, and silliness—as demonstrated by facial photos of ethnically diverse children. Large photographs of a single child’s head appear on left-hand pages (“Look at the happy baby. Can you make a happy face?”), and on the facing pages, young ones are asked to find the same face among photos showing other emotions (“Find the happy baby!”). White backgrounds provide maximum contrast for the photos, which readily telegraph each emotion, and an embedded mirror lets children see their own happy, silly, and other emotive expressions. Up to age 3.

July 1, 2017
This expressive primer puts names to faces and encourages children to make a few of their own. This sturdy board book uses photographs, a cutout cover, simple questions, and a mirror to teach children to identify and express five different feelings familiar to children of all ages. The book's design engages its target audience with attractive photos of cute baby boys and girls of several different races, including white, Asian, and black, and there's an adorable girl (judging by the little flower-shaped earrings) who looks Indian or of Middle Eastern descent. The cutaway hole in the cover peeks through at that girl happily sticking out her tongue, flanked by a serious youngster and a laughing little baby. The text introduces the terms "happy," "sad," "angry," "surprised," and "silly," each term illustrated with a baby face to match, followed by a chance to select that face from a pool of six babies. The design of the book encourages a dialogue between caregiver and child as young readers indicate their guesses and learn to distinguish among different facial expressions. After a quick review of the new vocabulary words, the last page of the book offers a mirror, so young readers can make some faces of their own. Good moody fun. (Board book.9 mos.-2)

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July 1, 2017

Baby-Toddler-Full-color head shots depict a diverse group of toddlers exhibiting a range of facial expressions that indicate a variety of emotions, from happy to sad and surprised to amused. Directives, such as, "Can you make a HAPPY face? or "Find the SAD baby!," engage young listeners throughout. A guessing game and a mirror offer youngsters interactive opportunities.

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