Flap Your Wings and Try

From School Library Journal PreSchool-- In short rhymed text, a baby bird wonders when he will learn to fly. His parents reassure him, but his sister urges, "Why don't you try,/ Flap your wings and try./ So I flap my wings and try,/ And soon I'm in the sky!" The young bird then meets another fledgling and encourages her to join him. The brief text, in large print, carries a lilting rhyme, lulling enough to serve as a bedtime read-aloud for a toddler. Tafuri has painted the rocks and beaches of a seashore, and has contrasted the bright blue ocean and the blue-washed sky (which serve as background) with the earthy brown, black, and white of a young seagull and a tern, the gray of the rocks, and the green of the tall grasses. Each object in her two-page watercolor scenes is outlined in black, creating her familiar graphic-like effect. These simple, bold illustrations have tremendous eye appeal, but they do not compensate for the blandness of the text, nor for the lack of correct punctuation (question marks, quotation marks). Although Pomerantz is not at her best here, the book will suffice in collections in which toddler fare is in high demand. --Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OHCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.