Up, Tall and High!

Contrary to what you might think, the winner of this year's Theodore Seuss Geisel award, Up, Tall and High! isn't about an insomniac basketball player on speed. Instead a flock of cheerful birds demonstrates the differences between the directional terms up, tall, and high (but not necessarily in that order).

Using bright, bold colors, strong lines, and sparse text, Ethan Long successfully illustrates these words in a humorous way. Adding to the fun, each of the three stories has a gatefold that opens up or down and that further throws light on the concept. In the second story, for instance, a landlocked penguin bemoans the fact he can't fly. An enterprising bluebird hands him some balloons and off he goes. Lift the flap and our penguin friend is now floating into the sky as he exclaims, "Yes, now I can go very high!"

Beginning readers just starting out on the road to fluency are sure to rejoice in a book that has so much to offer--simple text, boisterous art, interactive flaps, and giggles galore.

Up, Tall and High! (but not necessarily in that order)
by Ethan Long
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 40 pages
Published: February 2012