Elefantitos/Little Elephants

Toddler-PreS—Following her wonderful Los pollitos/Little Chickies, Jaramillo returns with a beautiful adaptation of another well-loved traditional song for children. This accordion-style interactive board book features the nursery song in Spanish on one side and its English translation on the other. As an elephant balances on the web of a spider and finds the web holds strong, it invites another elephant to join in. The cumulative song goes up to five elephants balancing on the web in this sweetly illustrated book. The English translation changes the original lyrics somewhat to fit the tune, but the spirit of the song remains the same. Both versions have identical layouts and illustrations, and thanks to the concertina format, neither language takes precedence over the other. The cartoon-style elephants are appropriately gray and stand out against a white background, with the spider's thread going across the page (the spider makes an occasional appearance), and the lyrics are simply and clearly displayed, accompanied by their corresponding number in a different color. The work has sturdy, turn-the-wheel effects that will send the elephants' heads and trunks swaying, much to the delight of little hands. And the spider's web? Well, of course it will break in the end!