Haiku Baby <small><br> by Betsy E. Snyder</small>

Little treasure box/ small fingers explore pages/ and find poetry

This little board book looks rather unassuming at first. Parents may pass over it in favor of slightly larger volumes, or those board books with familiar stories and characters. Given a chance, however, haiku baby is a delightful addition to a baby's library.

Each 2-page layout in the book (seven in all) features a different haiku about a natural element, such as rain, or sun or the moon. These haiku follow the traditional format of a certain number of syllables per line, but the actual content tends to be livelier for the younger audience. The author makes use of onomatopoeic words as well as animal characters and exclamations. The result is warm and engaging without becoming overly cute and keeping the character of haiku. Rather than the usual page structure, each page of the board book has an outstanding tab on the side that allows the reader to thumb through to the different pages. Each tab has a symbol for the particular haiku on that page layout. For instance, on the autumnal page with a haiku about a leaf, the tab has the image of a small gingko leaf. These tabs will help youngsters still learning how to work their fingers learn to turn the pages.

The art work in this book is whimsical and colorful; each page features a different animal and a different color scheme. The pages appear to be created by a mix of cut outs and possibly watercolors, there are no bold outlines here and it gives the whole book a softer feel. Each page has the repeating image of a small blue bird that appears originally on the front cover, providing a challenge to older children to find the bird in each scene. In addition to the actual artwork, each page includes the main poetic element represented by a Chinese character. Overall, there's a lot packed into this small package--not to mention it's a joy to read aloud. Parents who like to expose their young children to a wide range of culture, art and style may want to include this book in their collection. I definitely think it worth the purchase price!

For those who enjoy haiku and picture books, look for Today and Today, featuring the poetry of Issa Kobayashi and If Not for the Cat by Jack Prelutsky, which contains non-traditional riddle haiku about animals.

Happy Reading! ^_^ Shanshad

Haiku Baby