Review

Tildes follows Baby Animals Spots & Stripes with another high-contrast board book, this time showing four woodland creatures awake and asleep. Wispy, naturalistic images with the look of scratchboard art show a chipmunk eating an acorn as the book opens; opposite, it curls up in a thatch of grass. Baby bobcats, otters, and skunks follow, and black backgrounds for the bobcat and skunk's "awake" scenes hint at their nocturnal habits. A full-color closing spread of a human child almost seems like it belongs to another book, visually speaking, but should help youngest readers draw connections between their own habits and those of the pictured animals.
- Publishers Weekly

As she did in Baby Animals Spots & Stripes (2014) and Baby Animals Black & White (1998), Tildes uses detailed black-and-white illustrations to catch infants' eyes, here highlighting four unusual animals.At the same time she subtly and wordlessly imparts some pretty sophisticated scientific concepts. Tildes' illustrations alternate between the diurnal chipmunk and otter and the nocturnal bobcat and skunk. Each animal is shown twice, awake and asleep on opposite pages, with only the black or white background hinting at the time of day when that animal is active. Although each animal is named, the more complex concepts are left for adult reading partners, or perhaps older siblings, to point out or ignore depending on the interest, age, and attention of their babies. This is an age-appropriate choice, but it relies on adults to supply the scientific vocabulary. A toy chipmunk and otter-, bobcat- and skunk-decorated clothing reprise the same animals in the final, full-color pair of images of a charming human baby. The purple-clad child is appropriately androgynous and also ethnically ambiguous, though this curly-haired darling is very pale.A simple book with interesting possibilities for repeated reading, especially likely to hold the attention of both babies and their preschool-age siblings.
- Kirkus Reviews

From the Author

Hopefully a human baby sleeps both night and part of the day! But if one you know and love is resisting a nap, this board book showing some of my favorite animals awake and asleep, just might help.
This is my third board book for babies done in black and white. It has been proven that black and white images are very stimulating to the infant brain. I have included a full color illustration of a human baby at the end of each book as a surprise element.
I especially enjoyed doing the art for the otter and bobcat. The skunk and chipmunk were fun too. I try with all my animal illustrations to create a personality that reaches out to the youngest reader.

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