Review of the Day – Five Little Friends: A Collection of Finger Rhymes by Sean Taylor, ill. Fiona Woodcock

Five Little Friends: A Collection of Finger Rhymes
By Sean Taylor
Illustrated by Fiona Woodcock
Candlewick Press
$19.99
ISBN: 9781536242911
Ages 0-4
On shelves August 19th

When I was trained as a children’s librarian a decade or two ago, there were a variety of learned skills I had to learn and learn fast. How to do a booktalk for a classroom of 5th graders. How to memorize a folktale and present it outdoors in Central Park. And, of course, how to conduct a baby and/or toddler and/or preschooler storytime. What songs do you memorize? What books (if any) do you read? And how many do you have to do before you aren’t a shaking pile of nerves anymore? After all, when an adult is bored by a performer, they wait it out. A toddler is far less likely to turn to their friends and say, “Wait, wait… let’s see where this is going.” Bored little kids become mobile little kids, so if you’re entertaining them, you have to put on a good show. That’s where the finger rhymes come in. They’re everything you could possibly want when trying to capture the attention of wee babes. First off, they’re interactive. Second, they come with fun bouncy rhymes. And third? They’re repetitive. They have also, traditionally, been limited in number. Only once in a blue moon does a new finger rhyme try to make its way on the stage (I’m old enough to still consider “Baby Shark” a young upstart). Now imagine that someone didn’t invent just one rhyme. Image they somehow, inexplicably, miraculously, invented THIRTY-FIVE. So for those of us a bit burned out by performing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” for the 400th time, consider Five Little Friends your new best friend.

Part of the genius of this book is the way in which it incorporates the instructions to the adults on how to perform each rhyme. Typically, this would have been done in the margins of the page. You’d have the written rhyme, a cute illustration, and in small italics some guidelines. With Five Little Friends it’s different. Sean Taylor may have come up with the words, but it’s illustrator Fiona Woodcock who had to figure out how to indicate what to do in the art. Personally, I’d love to know the extent to which Sean and Fiona worked together. Did he send her written instructions for each rhyme and she simply translated them into the art, or he just send the words and she worked out matching actions on her own? What makes this book novel is that a lot of the time, the characters on the page are the ones acting out the rhymes. “See This Ship”, for example, shows a young sailor in a bunch of portholes, acting out each line of the poem. “The Elevator”, in contrast, shows two pairs of hands. The fingers are all multicolored and even have little eyeballs and facial expressions as they whoosh up and down. And Woodcock never sacrifices artistic splendor for practicality. A rhyme like “Snake”, for example, shows a yellow and black slit-eyed reptilian hand and arm against a black background. It’s eerie and fun and just a tiny bit scary (as is right). According to the publication page, all this art was done in mixed media. Translation: It’s so much prettier and more artistic than you’d expect. I mean, we were grateful for the words to exist at all. All this beautiful illustrative work is just the icing on the cake.

But wait.. let’s get back to Mr. Taylor’s contributions. Here we have a man who has done a wide range of picture books over the years. When my own children were small I took great pleasure in reading them, Hoot Owl: Master of Disguise. That book had more than a bit of wit and fervor to it. This book is a bit different. It got me to thinking about what makes a truly great finger rhyme. At their core, they’re small poems. Rhyming, while not required, is a definite plus, particularly if you can incorporate some kind of bouncy rhythm. They can vary widely in terms of length as well. “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”, for example, is basically the Moby Dick of finger rhymes. In this particular collection, Taylor limits himself for the most part. None of the rhymes are longer than two pages, though some do get a bit wordier than others (“Fancy Fingers”, for example, is one that might take a bit more memorizing than others).

One thing that really sets this collection apart is its willingness to acknowledge that we live in the twenty-first century. I don’t just mean in terms of racial representation on the page, though Fiona Woodcock does a fine job with that. I mean other forms of representation, as well as the contents inside. So you’ll have kids in wheelchairs doing some of these rhymes, which raises some interesting questions. After all, some rhymes require walking, stomping your feet, or other actions that might be difficult for some kids to do. I got the impression that the author and artist knew this and specifically added differently abled kids to those rhymes that would work better for them. Then, additionally, are the rhymes that incorporate contemporary technology. There’s a rhyme in the collection called “On My Phone” that involves swiping, watching videos, and even getting messages from your boss. For those of you worried about screentime and small children, fear not. The rhyme ends with a concern that, “I am on the phone so much I think it’s stuck to my hand…”

Maybe it’s the thrill of novelty that has me loving this title so much, but why is this book novel at all? Shouldn’t we be seeing constant finger rhyme books out there? Considering how many storytimes take place in this country every day, there’s definitely a need. But how do you market to that demographic? How do librarians and educators and parents even learn about books like “Five Little Friends”? If I were this publisher I’d sing its praises to the hills. I’ll let everyone know that you don’t have to do the same four rhymes over and over and over again. You can shake things up! Have a bit of fun! You could present this book with a colleague, one of you reading and holding the book up, the other one doing the hand motions. It’s beautiful and colorful and filled with clever new rhymes. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if your storytime needs a kick in the butt, this book is the butt-kicking you so sorely require. A brilliant notion that should be replicated more often.

On shelves August 19th

Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2025, Review 2025, Reviews