Tangled: A Story about Shapes

PreS-Gr 2--One day a perfectly innocent and adorable circle is playing on the jungle gym when she gets stuck inside it. Unable to extricate herself, she asks her friend Triangle to set her free her but he also ends up trapped. The same cruel fate befalls an ellipse and a group of pentagons who all bravely try to untangle the others but end up imprisoned. Help appears in the form of a straight and narrow line, who takes immediate command of the situation. With a clever plan utilizing some bystander shapes, they knock the jungle gym down freeing those inside. Line then explains to the jungle gym that she should make her spaces wider and soon all the shapes are able to play without peril. The rhyming text begs to be read aloud and will be an entertaining introduction to various shapes. Comstock's playful and expressive digital illustrations are done in warm tones and mimic chalkboard drawings. There is a gallery of shapes at the end that kids will surely love studying. VERDICT This delightful geometric tale is a must have for most libraries.--Amy Nolan, St. Joseph Public Library, MI

There is trouble at the playground when a pink circle gets stuck inside a jungle gym. In Comstock's retro-feeling illustrations, shape after colorful shape tries to help, each getting caught, until the playground structure is a chaotic tangle of geometric characters ("What a horror! What a mess! The shapes could not untwine," Miranda writes). Just then, a "straight and narrow line," comes bounding onto the scene. After eyeing the angles, she conjures up a plan and deputizes a prism and a sphere, who together form themselves into a lever and free their shape friends from the jam. Though how the lever's force does what the stuck shapes cannot is not particularly clear, the characters' willingness to help and their collaborative problem-solving make for an animated tale of community. Postscript material includes a chart of geometric shapes found in the book. Ages 4-8. (June)