The Shape of My Heart by Mark Sperring -- NOT RECOMMENDED

Sperring, Mark The Shape of My Heart, illustrated by Alys Paterson. PICTURE BOOK. Bloomsbury USA, 2012. $14.99. Content: G.

Using colorful, appealing images and rhyming text which mostly works, this book shows the shapes of common objects such as feet, cars, and zoo animals. While it is nice to see a book about shapes that goes beyond the typical circle, square, and triangle, The Shape of My Heart assumes that everyone's hands, eyes, lips, feet, and ears are shaped the same, which is definitely not the case. That makes this book very diversity-unfriendly. Also, it's hard to get over the fact that the final lines, "...this is the shape I love you with. This is the shape of my heart." are wildly inaccurate when paired with the traditional heart shape. While it is important to teach the traditional, cutesy shape that is most-commonly used, the wording here is very misleading, as the text implies it is anatomically correct. If you can get over these issues, it may be a fun way for a parent to teach a child about shapes, but for those who want to encourage accurate knowledge and a diverse classroom, I recommend skipping this book.

Pre-K, EL (K-3) -- NOT RECOMMENDED. Reviewer: Caryn