Tom and Annie Go Shopping - Hardcover

Kindergarten-Grade 3-- In Cumberland Road, people throughout the neighborhood have lost important possessions in their cluttered rooms, and each person is too busy to help someone else search. That quest is left to readers in 14 visual puzzles. Tom and Annie Go Shopping , visiting seven crowded shops to find the items on their list. At each stop along the way, readers help them spot four objects among the profusion of items for sale. The trip is a success, and the book's last page shows the pair at home with all the purchases somewhere in the room for a final search. To aid youngsters, Smith has placed one object in each corner of the page to be scrutinized. Color cues also help. The well-designed spreads are necessarily crammed with detail to provide visual challenge. Some aspects of the British setting in Smith's loose-lined watercolors and object-strewn borders may be unfamiliar to, but will not deter young hunters. The books should draw an audience from those who enjoyed Elaine Livermore's Follow the Fox (1981; o.p.) or Find the Cat (1973, both Houghton), but who are not yet ready for Handford's "Waldo" books (Little) .
-Kathy Piehl, Mankato State University, MN
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.