Editorial Review

Baugh, Helen. Spots and the Dots, The Marion Deuchars, Illus. Pic. Bk. Andersen, 09/2021. ³⁶pp. $17.99 978-1-72843-890-0 ADDITIONAL GRADES PRE-3 The red Spots and the blue Dots live on opposite sides of a hill and are afraid of each other until a young one from each side meet at the top of the hill and realize they can be friends. Using a rhyming text reminiscent of Dr. Seuss, the easy-to-follow cautionary tale effectively conveys the ideas of acceptance of others, although it is somewhat heavy-handed. “Now all could be friends! No one was scared! And the whole of the hill—to the top!—could be shared.” The full-color illustrations use deeply saturated colors, showing that the Spots and Dots are the same in every way except their color. Halfway through the book, the reader needs to flip the book around to see the same story from the Dots’ point of view, using basically the same text. Although this could be useful for classrooms focusing on social and emotional learning, it is not really an original concept. Stick with Seuss’s The Butter Battle Book (Random, 1984). Penny Peck, San Jose State Univ, iSch