My Big Brother - Hardcover

Valorie Fisher is the author and illustrator of My Big Brother and My Big Sister, both Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award winners; and Ellsworth's Extraordinary Electric Ears, called "sassy" in a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Her photographs have been widely exhibited and are in many major museum collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, London's Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Ms. Fisher lives in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut, with her husband and two children.

PreSchool-Grade 1-Big brother is so big he doesn't even fit on the cover of the book. All readers see are his untied sneakers, his baggy red socks, and his bandaged legs stretching up off the page. He is so big that he can do just about anything: play wonderful music (he beats a drum and blows a whistle), engage in important work (he's wearing a toy construction hat and tools), and train for the circus (he balances a large ball on his feet). But this boy is not so busy that he can't find time for his younger sibling. They play together and he even endures being splattered with food and listening to ear-offending "singing." This ode to the wonders of a boy whose simplest deeds take on heroic proportions in the eyes of a young sibling is related in brief, simple sentences and illustrated with close-up, full-color photographs, framed in white and placed opposite huge type surrounded by white space on the left. When big brother is standing, he is viewed from the perspective of someone very low to the ground looking up. It is only in the last frame, where the child is mirrored in a toy, that readers learn the supposed "narrator" is a baby. This will make a fine read-aloud, but it'll probably appeal more to older siblings than to the lap set.
Marianne Saccardi, Norwalk Community College, CT
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.