Friday, March 5, 2021

27. Baby Loves (Political Science) The Presidency


Board book: Baby Loves Political Science: The Presidency. Ruth Spiro. Illustrated by Greg Paprocki. 2021. [April] 20 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: Baby likes going to work with Papa at the food pantry. The food pantry helps people in the community.

Premise/plot: This board book is part of a series of books published by Charlesbridge. There was/is a series teaching science, but also there is a series teaching political science. The other titles in the series (apparently) are Baby Loves Democracy, Baby Loves Justice, Baby Loves Congress. 

There are two stories for "Baby" to keep up with. First, Baby's own family where the Papa works at a food pantry and works as part of a team and helps the community. Second, the "lesson" or "concept" being taught to Baby and presumably to other babies/toddlers/preschoolers. Primarily it focuses on the executive branch of the government.

My thoughts: I wanted to like this one more than I actually did. I really LOVED some of the titles in the Baby Loves Science series. For example, I loved, loved, loved, LOVED Baby Loves Quantum Physics and Baby Loves Thermodynamics! I thought those books excelled because they were clever. They illustrated complex ideas in a super-simple, basic way that actually was age-appropriate. This is my first exposure to the Baby Loves Political Science series, but I'm not as impressed. I think the subject (and presentation) is way too complex for the intended audience. If you told me this text was written to teach second graders, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But what second grader would voluntarily read a board book? What second grade teacher would have board books on the shelf? The content isn't bad just not age-appropriate--not really.  There are no other reviews of this title, I'm curious to see what other reviewers have to say on this title.

© 2021 Becky Laney of Young Readers

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