Look Up, Look Down

From School Library Journal PreSchool-Grade 3-- Another first-rate concept book by Hoban. This one features full-color photographs taken from different perspectives, encouraging viewers to determine if they are looking up or down. Some are a cinch; others require careful observation. In a few cases, it'll take readers some time to figure out what they're looking at, even though they'll be certain of the perspective. The two large, vivid photos on each double-page spread are related in content (for example, a martin house and the imprint of birds' feet on sand) or in composition (the radiating spiral of a snail's shell and the pattern of an open umbrella). This connection between pictures gives observers even more food for thought. For this reason, the book will challenge primary graders as well as preschoolers. --Linda Wicher, Highland Park Public Library, ILCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Kirkus Reviews The incredible Hoban brings her unique eye and mind to another sequence of 28 splendid photos, subtly pairing them to explore concepts, designs, and colors as well as (almost incidentally) subjects. Look up at the swirling canopy of a sycamore or down at a circular grill that might surround its trunk; up at a vertiginous skyscraper, its sharp verticals gleaming against a blue sky, or down at a quiet park's soft treetops, silhouetted against the blue of snow at twilight; down at a rainbow oil slick or at a goldfish swimming over a muddy submerged tire. The final photo is another witty self-portrait (cf. Shadows and Reflections, 1990): Hoban's shadow, elbows akimbo to hold her camera. Intelligence and skill inform every exquisitely composed page; no words used, or needed. (Picture book. 2+) --