Lots of Spots

by Lois Ehlert

Lois Ehlert is at her Ogden-Nashian best in this lively collection of poems about animal camouflage and adornment. Birds and beasts from all walks of the animal kingdom are gathered here, beautifully illustrated in Lois's signature bold and bright collage style. Complete with an Author's Note about the how-and-why of animal spots-and-stripes.

Genres: Picture Books, Animals, Poetry, Childrens, Nonfiction, Nature, School

40 pages, Hardcover

First published July 20, 2010

About the author

Lois Ehlert has created numerous inventive, celebrated, and bestselling picture books, including Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Holey Moley, The Scraps Book, Mice, Ten Little Caterpillars, RRRalph, Lots of Spots, Boo to You!, Leaf Man, Waiting for Wings, Planting a Rainbow, Growing Vegetable Soup, and Color Zoo, which received a Caldecott Honor. She lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Might serve as a great introduction to a unit on animals, camouflague, or adaptations. With a sprinkling of poetry, alliteration, rhyme and rhythm this books walks students through all the ways spots, patterns and coloring are defining traits or characteristics of various animals. For more advanced students could be a good jumping off point for a discussion of fiction versus non-fiction as the picture book format with poetic language juxtaposes with a sprinkling of facts.

[Mercy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful pictures but sometimes tedious text

[Ali Book&Seaglasshunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book could have its uses, but it wasn’t that great as a standard read at once story time type book. It definitely gets long and a bit tiresome to read through all the poems (there are many), and they just kind of lose their value after a bit. Some are definitely better than others, but a few just felt like they were thrown in as a filler (which wasn’t needed at all)! I think this book would be better suited as a classroom material. I could see it being read only a few poems at a time over the course of an animals unit, or maybe in conjunction with art projects, small group presentations, etc.
The illustrations are awesome though, very bright and eye catching, fun to look at. A lesson on collage tied into an animal unit would be fun for elementary students.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A longer storytime book, if you want to actually read all the little poems about the animals. My crowd of usuals is a little wigglier, so we do more talking about each of the animals (and all the shapes and patterns we see) than actually reading the poems. For an older crowd, it's a nice, rhyming way to introduce a lot of animals and nature facts. Like all Ehlerts books, the illustrations are a lot of fun, full of texture. Always a fun read.

[Cara Byrne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really interesting board book, as it is text heavy with descriptions of the unique animals Ehlert features (which appeals to my preschooler), but its large, colorful illustrations and white backdrop are perfect for a much younger reader. Both help make it a great bedtime read to both my 4-year old and 1-year old.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work of art by the esteemed Lois Ehlert mixes rhymes and nonfiction along with lively and colorful illustrations that budding artists could emulate. This would be a great book for a classroom library and for animal reports as an introduction followed by an art lesson with shapes and colors in the style of Ehlert.

[Gage Langman]

A rather childish book, that would appear to have some text that could be interpreted as something not completely school appropriate, but I guess it can be considered a good book for just starting to learn about the features of different animals, at a very young age. All in all, worth my time to add another book to the count, leading to the end of the year.

[E & E’s Mama · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super-short and often silly poems about different animals with geometric illustrations that are a bit on the abstract side (like many of Lois’s other books). Elliot loves this book, especially the page on birds. He makes me repeat the poems about Blue Jays and chickadees over and over and over 🤪


*library book. Read to Elliot at 16 and 21 months

[Esther May · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I love to look at Lois Ehlerts books, this one was not her best. The book is supposed to be about spots, but many of the pages did not have anything that had spots. I still Love Ehlert and her masterful craft of building her pages.

[Brett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe a little bit long for bebe's attention span at this point but I loved this one! Nice little rhymes about animals that tend to veer towards scientific fact/observation and brilliant collage style artwork that rivals anything Eric Carle ever did.

[Jenn Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this in board book format as a request at storytime. It was a lot of text for a very small board book and in our casual flip through read I didn't even notice the text was poems. As always I like Ehlert's illustrations and the mixture of familiar and new-to-kids animals

[Victoria Coody · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was cute and very informational. This book also had a lot of rhyme which makes it more intriguing to read and it catches your attention. This one wasn’t my favorite but it was good enough to where it wasn’t extremely boring.

[Suzanne Lorraine Kunz Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zander and I loved reading this book together. He was able to name many of the animals. It was fun that there were many unfamiliar ones for him to name as well. It was fun learning the different facts about the animals in the book.

[Emily Heid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story teaches children about animals who have spots. It is informational, yet fun because of the fun and colorful illustrations. It would be fun to pair with a lesson about animals during class. I think kids would like this book, especially younger ones.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of information and great illustrations.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is boring and has no plot or story.

[Deborah De · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great for names and characteristics of animals.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short poems about spotted animals

[Janna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool and detailed, but too high for my eighteen-month-old

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing collection of animals
Art is impeccable
Loved it

Buy this

[HEichEL · Rating 5 out of 5]

The art is great.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminiscent of Eric Carle books as far as illustrations go, this board book was packed with spotted animals and little rhyming facts about them.

[Jeimy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is misleading as it is about both spots and striped, but it’s the collages that are the star. Each is accompanied by a simple couplet or quatrain.

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the collages in this book. Its an older book (2010) and could be hard to find. Lois Ehlert was a wonderful and inspiring collage artist.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this nonfiction text, Ehlert’s Lots of Spots takes a playful look at the natural appearance of animals and the distinctions of their spots, stripes, and colors. Each page of this dynamic text introduces an animal or group of animals, its appearance and importance which are identified through the use of poetry and rhyming words. Ehlert’s purpose through Lots of Spots is to encourage young readers to notice the differences between animals, even subtleties between the same species. To introduce the Red-Winged Blackbird, Ehlert writes, “red and yellow patched on each wing, red-winged blackbird sings of spring.” Children will respond to the text’s rhythm and rhyme as each animal is described and characterized based on their distinct look and vibrant coloration. “Rhyme helps to create the musical quality of a poem, and children enjoy the ‘singingness' of the story's words. The book’s light quality and simplicity of text through short poems give it a playful feeling for readers to enjoy. Smaller children will enjoy pointing out the wide array of animals such as the badger, Dalmatian, lizard and penguin while older readers will be intrigued by the book’s engaging language and description nestled within personified animal illustrations. This book would be a useful tool to incorporate into units on animal classification, pattern, texture and descriptive language. It would also be an exciting way to introduce young children to nonfiction texts or reading for information as although there are not color photographs of each animal, Ehlert uses her knowledge of animals and their many distinctive markings to depict them through her unique style of illustration. That, coupled with her playful use of language would allow early readers an introduction of animal characteristics and markings.

Set against a white backdrop, Elhert’s illustrations positioned on full page spreads are exciting. Through various types of paper, colors and textures, Ehlert’s illustrations reflect the details of each animal. Often animal patterns and colors blend in with their natural habitats, giving Elhert great reason for the use of white space as backgrounds. The overlapping of paper in various colors, sheens, and textures give each animal a realistic and naturalistic quality, capturing their differences in appearance. The text and illustrations blend seamlessly. Elhert experiments with the use of space in nestling different species of animals together contrasted against white space. The use of endpapers is important as the book begin here, with the cover page printed on endpapers. The text begins here too with the introduction of the diverse coloring in schools of fish. The playfulness of the book’s text is enhanced through images of animals; their shape lends the reader to identify their characteristics and mannerisms by leading the eye across the page. One particularly favorite illustration is that of the giraffe whose long neck extends across two pages, clearly characterizing its length and all important patterns of geometric shapes. This book is powerful in Elhert’s seemingly effortless sense of space, imagery and language. Readers of all ages will be engaged and enthralled in this nonfiction text’s funny language portrayal of interesting animals and complex collage illustrations. It will leave the reader excited in looking closer at animals, their patterning and why this makes them so unique.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept of Lots of Spots is a great one. Short, pithy poems describe various wild animals and Lois Ehlert's signature collage style depicts each one with interesting colors, textures, and shapes. The problem, though, is that the poetry itself is very inconsistent, and often feels like it was thrown onto the page simply to accompany the illustration rather than to say anything new or interesting about the animals.

Many of the poems had either very obvious rhymes that felt gratuitous, or simple concepts that made me question the need for that particular poem. The poem about geese says,

Migrating geese
fly in Vs.
I wonder where
they catch some Zs?

I guess that's a cute idea, but it seemed really obvious and easy to me, and didn't make me think. I can imagine it wouldn't do much for a child, either.
I was also somewhat irritated by the poems that defined the animals in terms of their most obvious characteristics. The poem about orioles questions whether orange is their favorite color because they have orange chests. The chick-a-dee and blue jay poems do nothing more than point out the fact that the birds' names are derived from their calls. The panda bear poem describes exactly what we see in the illustration and then questions whether the baby panda looks like its parents. (What else would it look like?)

On the flip side, though, there are also some really great poems in here. They were a bit far between, but still very, very well done.

I think the best moment in the entire collection is when one bird is called a "gaudy macaw" and the notion of his being "conspicuous" is deemed "ridiculous". The internal and end rhymes are perfect, and it's one of the few poems that captures the full essence of its animal in only four short lines.

I also chuckled over the fact that a boy owl doesn't usually "give a hoot," "unless there's a girl owl and he's in pursuit." This poem doesn't tell us everything about owls, but it does tell us something specific in a clever and amusing way.

Bottom line, I really wanted more of those moments, and less filler. The illustrations are vibrant, creative, and eye-catching, but the text isn't always worthy of the beautiful artwork.

[Ally Copper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems about and cut paper illustrations of animals from nature fill the pages of "Lots of Spots" by Lois Ehlert. Science facts about each animal are revealed within each short poem. Don't expect to get a lot of detail on the animals in this book. Each animal only gets a short snippet, and one or two fun facts are given. For example, the barn owl poem states, "One barn owl can catch more mice and rats than a whole family of mouser cats." Rather than a focused study on any one animal, this picture book shows the wide array of animals and colors and designs (especially spots) that exist in nature. The cut paper pictures are fascinating to look at. They are layered and textured and creative. So much personality and so many natural details are revealed with simple paper shapes arranged just so. Young readers (kindergarten through grade 2 or 3) will be inspired to create their own.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her art, as usual, just great. The rhymes are not always up to the level of the art and it feels like some were just tacked on. When they are clever, it really works and feels akin to Douglas Florian rhymes: "Lizards slither hither and thither." However. the lack of consistency is a tad annoying (as in " A nice thing about a butterfly is that it adds a spot of color to our habitat". Plus some of the rhymes give information and some are just nonsensical which is a bit jarring. She has set a high bar with her previous work so yes, we get to be all judge-y here. Of course, I ordered it for the library anyway for the great graphic quality of her art and because she is Lois Ehlert who turns out good stuff consistently.

[Eva-Marie Nevarez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Get this for the illustrations and that's it. The poems, for the most part, are horrible for out loud reading and some just plain suck either way. There are a very few that are actually okay.
I read another book recently, along the same lines as this, and can't remember the title. If anyone is interested in a good childrens book like this, check out the 'Julias-books' list I have - it's there and was read recently so search by date read and it'll pop up. Far better than this. The only thing that saves it from one star is what I've mentioned already. The poems alone are definitely one star.

[Jordan Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of Spots
Author: Lois Ehlert
Reading Level: ages 4-7

Ehlert, Lois (2010) Lots of Spots New York: Beach Lane Books

Lots of Spots is an incredibly easy read. It's silly, and also educational--depicting attributes, facts, and witticisms associated with animals with spots.

The book relies heavily on rhyming, so it's instantly engaging, for children love to find patterns anywhere and everywhere they can. Some of the information depicted is educational, others are somewhat nonsensical, but if's all in good fun.

The illustrations are simple. The animals appear to be like paper cutouts. It's a simple, yet engaging enough style!