Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Laura Ljungkvist's persistent black line from Follow the Line continues on in Follow the Line Through the House, a pleasing indoor sequel. While maintaining the same unifying principle, Ljungkvist spins her hand-painted black line through a tight thicket of '60s-retro designs in robin's-egg blue, tart green, tangerine and violet. She lets readers hurry ahead, then gets them to backtrack at the very end: "A few things were put in spots that were wrong./ Where do these things really belong?" (Viking, $16.99 32p ages 4-up ISBN 9780-670-06225-6; May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-A companion to the author's entertaining Follow the Line (Viking, 2006). Here, Ljungkvist takes her acrobatic line and rhyming text into a house and invites children to locate common items inside a toolbox, a refrigerator, a medicine cabinet, a toy box, etc. While the line challenges and trains the eye to follow it, the text poses some questions and suggests activities such as counting like objects, choosing clothing to wear to the beach or to a party, and deciding what foods are needed to make a sandwich. The author uses a mixture of bright and muted colors and includes some of her daughter's drawings to decorate the playroom. Some family photos and even a postcard written in Swedish appear in the attic treasure box. Objects like an old rotary phone and a record player will likely intrigue children and possibly even stump them; that just adds to the fun. The last page cleverly sends children back to look again by asking, "As you were exploring, did you see a mouse?" or "A few things were put in spots that were wrong. Where do those things really belong?" While not as flashy bright as Walter Wick's "I Spy" books (Scholastic), this clever, interactive offering is a welcome addition to the genre. Children will line up to check it out.-Kirsten Cutler, Sonoma County Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool, Primary) Whereas Ljungkvist's previous Follow the Line ventured up into the sky and down into the ocean, among other far-flung locales, her new book explores the wilds of a refrigerator, a closet, a toolbox, and other domestic spaces with equally exciting results. The concept is the same in both volumes: a black line travels from page to page, forming the shapes of different objects as it goes. Here the line also provides an eye-catching home tour as it wends through geometric, brightly colored retro decor, morphing from a pickle jar and butter dish in one spread into steps leading down to the basement in the next. The text asks a series of questions ranging from the enumerative ""How many bow ties can you count?"" to the open-ended ""What would you wear to a fancy party?"" When the tour is over, Ljungkvist extends an invitation to go back and find items that ""were put in spots that were wrong,"" but readers won't need any coaxing to snoop through her stuff once again. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Having led young viewers from sea to city and from night to day in Follow the Line (2006), Ljungkvist takes them on a house tour in this like-patterned follow-up--again starting an unbroken black line on the front cover that ends on the back and in between runs through each room while geometrically outlining furniture or small objects. Using various shapes in harmonious colors to fill in details and backgrounds, and integrating brief lines of text into the pictures, she pauses in the fridge, a closet, a toolbox and other storage areas to invite a bit of counting, identification or searching for scattered items. Similar in appeal but much simpler in style than Walter Wick's I Spy series and its ilk, this doesn't exactly signal a creative leap for the artist, but it does make an enjoyable way to increase attention span and visual literacy. (Picture book. 5-7) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
