Here a Face, There a Face

by Arlene Alda

Overview

Author/photographer Arlene Alda has produced yet another brilliantly simple rhyming safari — this time in search of faces in unusual places. These faces are found on buildings, in trees, mailboxes, and fountains. Coy, funny, grumpy, comical, or sad, they are almost anywhere a child’s imagination wants to go. Whimsical text heightens the search and helps us find the unusual characters who are quietly gathered all around us. Alda’s unique through-the-lens perceptions will launch young children on a visual adventure that just might be hard to return from.

The easy-to-read text and trampe d’oeil photos make Here a Face, There a Face perfect for the young or young at heart.

This is Arlene Alda’s third, and perhaps her most clever photographic essay. Look for The Book of ZZZs and Did You Say Pears?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770491083
Publisher:	Tundra
Publication date:	11/24/2011
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

Arlene Alda is an award-winning photographer and writer whose photographs have appeared in Life, Vogue, and People as well as numerous galleries. She is the author of thirteen children’s books including her most recent, Did You Say Pears?; The Book of ZZZs; and Morning Glory Monday, illustrated by Maryann Kovalski. Her photographs are also featured in 97 Orchard Street, New York, by Linda Granfield. A native New Yorker, Arlene Alda lives on Long Island with her husband, actor Alan Alda.

Editorial Reviews

The artist behind the camera for Did You Say Pears?delivers another perky photo-essay that blends poetry, art and elements of traditional seek-and-find books. This outing challenges readers to see faces-combinations of eyes, nose, mouth-in such everyday objects as water faucets, a mailbox or a skillet in which eggs are sizzling. Each of her color photos is accompanied by a brief phrase that helps focus the reader's attention and is also part of a longer rhyming couplet ("Looking up,/ Glancing down,/ Staring straight ahead./ On a pot,/ In a pan,/ Even on some bread"). The verse grows more abstract toward the end, and the closing image, of clouds, may throw some readers ("Look, there goes a fluffy pig... floating towards its bed"). But those who love seeing the ordinary in new ways, especially those who aren't yet ready for I Spy and Look-Alike titles, will welcome this entry. Ages 2-5. (Mar.)

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Publishers Weekly

PreS-Gr 3- A simple rhyming text leads children from page to page and photo to photo in the discovery of "faces" in ordinary objects. Each page has a short line of the verse and a color photograph of a manmade or natural object with facial characteristics. The photographs are clearly focused and cropped so that viewers can zoom in on the countenance. The subjects include buildings, a kitchen pot, a tree, mailboxes, and more. Youngsters will delight in finding the eyes, noses, and mouths. Some faces are more challenging to see than others, but all will encourage children to find faces even beyond the book's pages. With a format similar to Tana Hoban's books, this title will appeal to the same audience.-Carolyn Janssen, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, OH

School Library Journal

The world takes on a decidedly animistic aspect in this photo album, as Alda's camera finds faces on trees and buildings, in the kitchen and the bathroom, in patterns on rugs, windows, the fronts of post-office mailboxes and even the slashes on round loaves of bread. Some pictures have a put-together look, but most seem to be presented as found, in natural light and without extensive digital manipulation. As she suddenly turns skyward on the last page to depict a piglet-shaped cloud, her attention span isn't as steady as it might be, and most of the faces she finds aren't nearly as friendly looking as those in Francois Robert's similar Find a Face (2004). Still, this will effectively spur young children to look more closely and imaginatively at their surroundings. A short rhymed text helps to identify each object or locale. (Picture book. 4-6)

Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Did You Say Pears?:
“As entertaining as it is aesthetically pleasing.” — Publishers Weekly

“A marvelously imaginative pairing … of homonyms … and homophones wrapped up in a rhyme of amazingly few words and terrific offbeat photographs.” — Booklist

“… a luscious welcome to the visual and mind-tickling delights of language…. Repeated viewings only reveal in more and more detail just how careful, clever and professional this seemingly simple picture book is — a perfect concept and a happy diversion, too.”
— The Toronto Star

From the Publisher