The illustrations that Karen Katz creates are color-rich with boldly drawn characters and objects that are easy for little ones to identify.
Young children enjoy Karen’s books immensely. Her books are an excellent example of what a wonderful board book can be like.
You might think that board books are all sort of the same. After all they only ever contain a few words, a few pictures, and a few pages. It doesn’t seem like there’s much to creating something like that – right?!
Well, kids will lead the way in demonstrating which board books are produced by very talented people, and which books are just not as great. Kids gravitate to the well-created books. Those authors and illustrators are the kind of people who work and work and work at the words in a book. Until they are just right. These people really understand the trick of writing for very young children, and they’ve perfected the craft of creating spectacular board books for little children.
Karen Katz is one of the very talented people in the board book world. Each word in her books is carefully, perfectly selected, and the rhymes are exactly what jive for little people. This talent becomes more obvious over time as you read more board books by other authors. Gems like this book by Karen Katz (and any book by Karen Katz for that matter) rise to the top of the stack.
Why I Recommend This Book
It’s a book about Halloween that’s very gentle and appropriate for young children. It works well as a book to share with kids during the fall in combination with other fall or Halloween activities.
It’s a lift-a-flap book which is engaging for young children AND helps them build the strength and use of their fingers, also called “fine-motor dexterity.” The whole process of interacting with life-a-flap books is something you need to teach to children. Most pick it up quickly and then you can reinforce the skill by reading a bunch of lift-a-flap books. They love this new skill and it’s a lot of fun to read these books with them. This process is also an early step in understanding how to follow instructions.
Book Facts for Where Is Baby’s Pumpkin
Author and Illustrator: Karen Katz
Copyright: Published in 2006
Publisher: Little Simon
Age Range: Babies to Preschoolers, Birth to Age 4
About the Book Art: Karen Katz is a prolific author/illustrator of books for young children. Her distinctive style is instantly recognizable. On her website karenkatz.com she shares more about her process and how she creates her books. We love this article where she speaks in her own words about her books and you can see photos of her in her studio.
Get the Book Where Is Baby’s Pumpkin
Where Is Baby’s Pumpkin is available both new and used. This book is popular and I recommend you definitely check your local consignment shops.
- Buy this book new at Bookshop.org
- Buy this book used at Thriftbooks.com
One pro tip from us to you: Be careful when purchasing any lift-a-flap books second-hand. It’s certainly possible but you’ll want to make sure all the flaps are still in the book (sometimes they get ripped out by eager hands!).
Hug Hug!