Look!

by Ted Lewin, Ted Lewin (Illustrator)

Overview

Look! An elephant eats. Look! Giraffes drink. Look! A warthog digs. A gorilla hides, wild dogs listen, zebras run, monkeys sit, hippos splash, and a rhino naps. Each line of text is illustrated by a two-page spread with a beautiful painting of an animal Ted Lewin has seen on his journeys to Africa. At the end of the story, a boy reads, plays, and dreams, surrounded by toy animals that represent each of the real ones.

This I Like to Read® book encourages children to observe, enjoy, and appreciate the natural world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823430598
Publisher:	Holiday House
Publication date:	01/14/2014
Series:	I Like to Read Series
Pages:	24
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	150L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Ted Lewin grew up in Buffalo, New York, with two brothers, one sister, two parents, a lion, an iguana, and a chimpanzee. He became interested in art as a young boy when he would draw his brothers wrestling. Ted later worked as a professional wrestler to finance his studies at the Pratt Institute of Fine Arts, where he met his wife, Betsy Lewin, also a children's book writer and illustrator. He and his wife travel around the world to research the setting for their books. While working on Sacred River, which he both wrote and illustrated, Ted joined thousands of Hindus on their pilgrimage to the banks of the Ganges River in Benares, India. Ted now lives and works in the brownstone he shares with his wife and their two cats in Brooklyn, New York.

Editorial Reviews

"The sentences of one to three words per spread in a large, clear font and the straightforward text-to-action correlation make for solid and attractive support for very beginning readers in a picture-book format."

Booklist

A boy is wide-eyed as he sits with a book on his lap and studies animals on the savanna. "Look! Elephant eats." "Look! Giraffes drink." "Look! Warthog digs." "Look! Gorilla hides." This simple word pattern is repeated through the pages as the boy (and reader) gazes on nine animals in all. Lewin then returns the focus to the boy himself, shown playing and reading while surrounded by the play animals before falling asleep with his animals nearby on his quilt. Each double-page spread shows the animal in its natural habitat and illustrates some typical animal behavior. Lewin's pencil-and-watercolor realistic paintings are awash with sunlight, conveying both a sense of the animal's personality and the action of the tale. One can easily imagine the pounding as zebras race by, the spray as hippos splash, the snuffling as the warthog digs. One of Holiday House's "I Like to Read" series, this is an easy nonfiction selection, perfect for an emergent reader. The short sentences and repetitive text will help build confidence in a child just starting to read; the paintings will help the child know the animal names. Reviewer: Peg Glisson

Children's Literature - Peg Glisson

PreS-Gr 1—Adding minimal two- to four-word captions that call attention to the depicted animals and actions ("Look! An elephant eats."), Lewin presents a gallery of African creatures on their own or in small groups. With typically luminous, impressionistic watercolors he opens with a close-up of a child's wide-eyed face, closes with the same child surrounded by toy animals and books ("Look! A boy reads."), and in between captures giraffes leaning down to drink, a gorilla peering shyly through a screen of vines, a herd of galloping zebras, and six more animals. All are easy to identify and naturalistically posed. Emergent readers will relish decoding the text; thoughtful youngsters might also catch the subtle link forged by the boy's imagination between his toys and their living counterparts.—John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, New York City

School Library Journal

With wide-eyed amazement, a boy observes animals on the African savanna. "Look! An elephant eats." Two giraffes drink at a water hole. A solitary warthog snuffles in the dirt. A gorilla peers out from behind stalks. Wild dogs alertly listen. Zebras gallop, and monkeys perch high in a tree. Hippos open their mouths in the water, and a rhino sleeps. Now circle back to the boy as he reads a story to his stuffed animals and goes to sleep with his favorite, an elephant, close by. Lewin, the intrepid world traveler and accomplished painter of animals in their natural habitats, gives each a double-page spread and uses pencil and watercolors to showcase them in the shimmering sun of the savanna. Beginning readers will enjoy each repetition of "look," the short declarative sentences used for each of the animal activities, and the large font. Adults sharing this title will appreciate the connections made between the text and the pictures. A satisfying challenge and a fun animal adventure made thrilling by Lewin's characteristically spectacular use of light. (Early reader. 2-6)

Kirkus Reviews