This vintage board book about baby animals was published by Grosset & Dunlap as part of their Puppet Storybook collection. This wonderful collection features pictures of puppets staged and photographed by Tadasu Izawa and Shigemi Hijikata. For a list of other books in the series (and links to my reviews) see Puppet Storybooks/3D Puppet Wonder Books.
Cover and title page
The cover is white, with green title and black series title, and use of peach-coloured lines and borders. The front cover features a central 3D lenticular image of a puppy in a red wheelbarrow, surrounded by ducklings, a chick, a songbird, and a pig. My copy has a golden sticker in the top corner of the front cover advertising "Wonder Books, 99¢".
There are no separate front and back endpapers – the front endpaper is the beginning of the double-spread title page, and the back endpaper is the final scene of the story.
The title page features a farmyard scene with a red barn and trees in the background, and in the foreground a brown and white puppy dog asleep outside a kennel on a green grassy slope.
The illustration copyright date is shared (1969) but the publication date is unclear – possibly 1969 as well. No copyright or author is given for the story text.
The back cover provides a list of Puppet Storybooks (numbering 0751–0778) and a description of the series.
Story
This original story is told through a central character, "Skippy the puppy", visiting different parts of the farm and greeting the different animals there. He meets "three little pigs", ducklings at the pond, "baby horses" at the corral, "baby lambs" in the pasture, "baby chicks", and "baby birds in their nest".
Different animal noises are shared with the reader, and sometimes the reader is directly addressed and invited into the scene. The story is fresh, friendly, and fun, with some lovely descriptions:
Down by the pond, where fuzzy cattails sway to and fro in the gentle breeze, the ducklings are paddling about in the water, enjoying their morning swim. "Quack!" they say, just like Mother Duck.
Pictures
The sets are beautifully designed, with blue or peachy backgrounds, and convincing farmyard buildings and flowers and trees. The puppets are posed in fun and engaging ways. Look at this delightful sheep among the crocuses and primroses:
Summary and availability
This is another lovely addition to the Puppet Storybook collection and there seem to be plenty of copies available online. Just note that this is a different book to the identically named Baby Animals of the similarly named Preschool Puppet Book collection!