I Can Roar

Jami van Haaften is a librarian and author of An Index to Selected
Canadian Provincial Government Publications for Librarians, Teachers and
Booksellers.

These two picture books encourage toddlers to mimic the animals they see and hear. The face of each animal is a hole in the page, designed to frame a child’s face as animal sounds and expressions are acted out.

Since the books are designed to be handled, the pages might better have been made from thick cardboard, rather than heavy gauge paper. However, each ten-page volume is the right size to be held by little readers.

I Can Roar features animal sounds such as barking, squeaking, baaing, meowing, growling, etc. I Can Blink emphasizes the perhaps more difficult concepts of facial movements and expressions: chewing, sniffing, snapping, smiling, scrunching. The imaginative child will pick up where these

books leave off and devise sounds and expressions for other animals. The value of books such as these by Frank Asch is that they help young children become familiar with the animal world. Parents and teachers will find these books to be useful toys.

Mr. Asch has written two other picture books: Good Night Horsey and Happy Birthday Moon.