Postcards

This wonderfully colorful picture book follows a gentlemanly dog named Mr. Tweed, who strolls about his neighborhood helping people find the things they have lost, from one lost kite to ten lost presents. In this community populated by anthropomorphized animals and people, children will find any number of quirky and delightful scenes as they search alongside Mr. Tweed to find and count the things that are missing. Jim Stoten’s charming illustrations and text have the potential to help very young children learn their numbers. Reading the book with them could take some time, as Stoten’s pattern for each number offers a page with a good deal of white space, minimal illustration, and the text, followed by a full-page illustration with large figures depicting Mr. Tweed beginning his next quest, followed by a two-page spread where the lost items are hidden in a detailed illustration along the lines of the Where’s Waldo series. The single-page illustrations will take some discussion as Stoten includes figures like a random hippopotamus or a human-looking child with rabbit ears, and the doublepage spreads deserve a child’s careful attention.

Jim Stoten Mr. Tweed’s Good Deeds
London: Flying Eye Books, 2014.
unp. ISBN: 9781909263352
(Picture Book; all ages)