Where's Ellie?: A Hide-and-Seek Book

by Salina Yoon

Overview

Where's Ellie is a guessing game in board book form. Very young readers will love searching for Ellie the elephant among familiar colorful objects—and finding something unexpected instead. Each page offers a hint of Ellie, but it isn't until the last page that readers will find her. And when they do, they'll want to start all over and do it again!

Intricate embossing on Ellie and her trunk add depth and a tactile element to this die-cut board book—as well as extra value.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307978066
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	08/28/2012
Pages:	18
Sales rank:	41,999
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 6.80(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 3 Years

About the Author

SALINA YOON is an award-winning author-illustrator of nearly two hundred books for young children, including Where's Boo? and the popular Penguin picture-book series. She has received a Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Award, been a finalist for the CBC's Children's Choice Book Award for Kindergarten to Second Grade, and has received Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal Awards and the Nick Jr. Family Magazine Best Book of the Year Award. She lives in San Diego, California, with her family.

Editorial Reviews

Labeled "A Hide-and-Seek Book," this die cut board book features Ellie the elephant. Now elephants are not small creatures, so her hiding places have to be sizable. They cannot be the potted plants or the teapot in a bed of flowers. How about the cactus? No, but what about the tree? Yes, readers will see that Ellie was hiding behind the apple tree. In addition to the main story, there is a little ladybug on each page and various other creatures who are all reprised on the final spread. Together they offer a bit of humor throughout the book. The inchworm is drinking a cup of tea and the iguana/lizard is hiding under a big hat. Ellie's gray trunk which appears in the die cut section also makes up a part of each scene—the spout on the teapot, part of the garden hose, and a cowboy hat. There is a lot more going on in this book than might appear at an initial reading. It should be interesting to see how quickly kids pick up on the extras. Reviewer: Marilyn Courtot

Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot

Ellie the elephant plays an unsatisfying game of hide-and-seek with readers. A semicircle is cut out of every page except the last, so that Ellie's gray, touch-and-feel trunk is present on every spread. The text asks "Where is Ellie hiding? Is she behind the plant?" Readers see the elephant's trunk poking out from behind a house plant. At the turn of the page, readers discover that this was not Ellie's trunk at all, but a teapot's gray spout or a gray hat's wide brim. Ellie is finally found hiding behind a fat apple tree at the end. Even though Yoon's invitingly rotund cartoons in cheerful colors are accessible, this hide-and-seek format is not as engaging as the classic lift-the-flap variety. The gray garden hose that Ellie's trunk is mistaken for is hard to identify without the text--not to mention a mundane object to find in a game of hide-and-seek. While Yoon is the current reigning queen of inventive board-book gimmicks with such titles as Kaleidoscope and At the Beach (both 2012), this one-note creation is not as successful as these earlier offerings. Sit this particular game out. (Board book. 1-3)

Kirkus Reviews