Sheep Blast Off! by Nancy Shaw, illustrated by Margot Apple - review

Sheep Blast Off! by Nancy Shaw, illustrated by Margot Apple
Sheep in a Jeep was one of the first little-kid books we had after our first child was born - a worn book-fair paperback that I took little notice of... until I started reading aloud to said kid. "Sheep in a jeep on a hill that's steep," man, there is very little more pleasurable than reading fun, rhythmic rhymes like that.

Nancy Shaw followed up the success of that charming book by sending her sheep into a Shop, onto a Ship, Out to Eat, on a Hike, and now, into SPAAACE. And we may not review every entry in a series like this, but sometimes it's nice to revisit, see how things are doing, check if things have gotten stale.

Aaand, ok, well, they haven't. Margot Apple's colored pencil illustrations, are, if anything, more vibrant and expressive than ever before, with that luxurious depth of color and toothy quality you only get from colored pencil, and Nancy Shaw is still writing bouncy, metered lines that awfully fun to read aloud. "Around the world the rocket zips. Weightless sheep do jumps and flips." And you have got to love four-armed, green, suspiciously sheepy aliens.