Don’t judge a book by its cover. I know the saying. Yet, I was completely judging Sharkblock before looking at it. Ironically, my first thought was that the ‘block’ series has jumped the shark. How could Franceschelli and Peskimo make a block book about sharks that was something more than just a board book asking young readers to look at the sharks? Quicker than you can say ‘hold my cartilage they’ve made a book that continues the excellence that you’d expect from this series. Sharkblock has the thick, interactive pages that fans of the series expect to see, but has added education in the most kid-friendly way possible to their subject matter.
When we last saw the Hello!Lucky team, they were up and at ‘em with Go Get ‘Em Tiger. In Thanks A Ton! their bright, maniacally happy presentation is back with a cadre of animals and the goal of getting kids to laugh and say ‘thank you. If you haven’t seen a Hello!Lucky book or any of their graphic artwork it’s unmistakable.
Saying that board books are for babies is like saying pizza is mostly circular. While that is true, you could also talk about the myriad number of ingredients, the thickness of crust, and so on. Sandra Boynton is the queen of board books. However, her style of board books is just like that classic pepperoni pizza, it’s one style. My Mighty Marvel First Book is a series of board books from Abrams Appleseed. This series absolutely nails to the floor the aspects, appearance, enjoyment, and characteristics that make up a great board book for crawlers and up.
Let’s take a look at The Incredible Hulk and Black Panther. “Those pictures look old”, our 11-year-old said while looking over the book. Obviously, these board books are meant for crawlers through early elementary school. However, I knew what he was talking about with his ‘old’ adjective. Black Panther is illustrated by John Buscema and The Incredible Hulk is done by Sal Buscema. John and his younger brother are legends in the Marvel Comic world. Their representation of every superhero at Marvel Comics came to define the appearance and personality of their superheroes for a generation. Sal had a 10-year run illustrating The Incredible Hulk, whereas John did at least one issue of every Marvel Comic book and then some. Suffice it to say, any parent that picks up either of these My Mighty Marvel First Books will have some sort of memory when they look at the art.
Alphablock and Countablock, released in 2013 and 2014, have taught tens of thousands of children their alphabet or how to count. Our family is certainly in that group, as both boys learned their basics from them. Those books are part of the Abrams Block Book series and since then, they’ve expanded to fun, entertainment topics, as well as, the educational building blocks of the English language. Disney Block, Magical Moments For Fans of Every Age is an Abrams Block Book that takes the format of these books and captures 25 moments from classic Walt Disney films.
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