Circus Shapes: Level 1, Recognizing Shapes (Mathstart)

Circus animals and performers getting ready for a show form basic geometric shapes.

PreSchool-K?A book that teaches shape recognition cloaked in a story about a circus performance. Circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles are introduced on every other spread. The illustrations are very simple and linear, allowing children to identify the various shapes that appear in the pictures. Unfortunately, although Miller uses bold, primary colors, the illustrations lack the excitement and movement associated with a circus. The text is dry and forced in some spots, such as "Some monkeys make a square. The four sides are all the same." However, the straightforward narrative does make the information accessible. More visually attractive books on the topic include Lois Ehlert's Color Zoo (1989) and Circus (1992, both HarperCollins), and Tana Hoban's Shapes, Shapes, Shapes (Greenwillow, 1986).?Lisa Gangemi Krapp, Sousa Elementary School, Port Washington, NY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Murphy (Betcha!, p. 1460, etc.) adds to the MathStart series with a book about shapes, presenting them in no less than three rings. In lackluster rhyme, elephants show circles, horses show triangles, monkeys hold up a square, and bears handle a rectangle. The shapes are evident in introductory illustrations but not identified until spreads in the middle, and that's only one inconsistency that limits the book's usefulness. Lions roar amidst plenty of stars and diamonds--shapes that aren't mentioned in the text or found in a previous illustration. A final spread before the show ends asks how many circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles are in the picture, but no key is provided to reinforce the lesson. Beyond that lesson, Miller's clean-cut illustrations offer bright colors and bold geometric shapes, doing for the circus what Donald Crews did for the festive procession in Parade (1983). (Picture book. 2-4) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.