Groundwood board books reviewed in Globe, Toronto Star, & CM Magazine

It’s Useful to Have a Duck, by Isol
9780888999276 | $10.00 board | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)

Mother Goose, by various
9780888999337 | $9.95 board | in stock
Groundwood Books (HarperCollins)

Mother Goose was reviewed in the Globe & Mail on Apr. 24, and Isol’s It’s Useful to Have a Duck was reviewed in both the Toronto Star (Apr. 25), and CM Magazine. From the Toronto Star:

For the even younger, try the accordion-folded board book It’s Useful to Have a Duck – also titled, on the other cover, It’s Useful to Have a Boy, by the Mexican artist Isol. Deceptively naïve, black pencil drawings on yellow pages take us through a boy’s ways of playing with a toy duck – from riding it like a rocking horse and wearing it as a hat to using it for a bath plug.

Read this book from the other side, with its identical pictures but this time, blue pages, and you’ll find it’s useful for a duck to have a boy. "I use his head to see the view," is the duck’s interpretation of the boy using him for a hat. The same pictures from two very different points of view give us two wildly different stories. A book that looks deliciously simple, but offers up complex ideas and some wit, too.