Cover Image: Clean Up, Up, Up!

Clean Up, Up, Up!

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Member Reviews

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the pictures in this book. So cute and colorful and really fit the story well. I love that the dad was involved with the clean-up routine as usually they use the mother.

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The concept behind this book is a very good one, but the actual book could have been better. The note for parents at the beginning is good, and mentions take-aways (like spatial language) that the parent can use in everyday life. The modeling of cleaning-up a room with a toddler is nicely done, too, with the father taking his time, talking through each task, and encouraging the child to help without making it a miserable chore. The inclusion of both Spanish and English makes the pages appear text heavy, but they also make the story accessible to a larger audience of parents and children.

Unfortunately, the pictures don't always match the text well. The first page spread sets-up putting things away on a top shelf and asks "What goes down below?" and while the next page spread mentions the bottom shelf clean-up in the text, the image barely shows the shelf with the toys, instead giving the majority of the image to putting a train set under the bed (which gets less than half the text on that page spread). On a first reading, I found this jarring, and it could have been illustrated better to clearly show both parts of the child's room. I think upon re-reading this (probably many, many times), parents can point and add their own comments to smooth over this lack of transition.

Overall, this is still a nice book for parents and children to read together modeling positive clean-up time with toddlers and examples of how to include spatial language every day.

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Extremely simple and well executed bilingual book, something like this would work very well with a small child.

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Clean Up, Up, Up! walks the reader through observing a little boy cleaning up his room with his dad help. He finds his train, puts away his teddy bears, and washes up for dinner. The sentences are basic and easy for toddlers to understand and relate to. The pages narrate the tidying process with the boy answering in 4-word or fewer replies with up usually being the last word. In addition to the English on the page, the short story is first told in Spanish. The illustrations are bright and colorful dreamlike watercolors. This book would be best for a 1-3 year olds.

Note: I was allowed an advance copy of this book to review. In no way did that affect my opinions.

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That was cute! Little readers would really enjoy this simple story about cleaning up... and the pictures would definitely interest them!

**I received a copy of this book from its publisher on NetGalley in exchange for my honest review**

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Magical and whimsical book for children that adds fun to completing house chores!
Thumb through the pages quick ly or take your time. It's colorful and mid-level reading level and it's an enjoyable read for the family! If you'd like your young ones, pre-k and kindergarten to read a simple story about cleaning up their toys, arranging their clothes or just simply making the house tidy, then this is the book for you!

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There are two versions of this book, one with English only and one with both English and Spanish. I read the dual book and as Spanish is not a language that I would be learning, I would have preferred the English only version. I found there was a lot of text and it was a bit distracting. This story features a father/child relationship cleaning up and performing other daily tasks. Each two page spread offers simple language and key words involving position and/or location. Repeated reading of this book would help the child to learn these concepts as well as the idea that cleaning up is an expectation and normal part of life (some children are never taught to clean up). I enjoyed the use of BOLDFACE text for the short words or phrases that will urge children to echo or chime in with the reading. The illustrations are wonderful. They are bright, realistic and full of detail. There is a note to parents and caregivers sharing how everyday activities offer rich opportunities to teach early spatial math concepts. As a retired teacher, I can not stress the importance of using those teachable moments enough. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book to read upon request. The rating, ideas and opinions shared are my own.

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Clean Up, Up, Up! is a delightful read - all while teaching spatial relationship words like, ‘down’, ‘under’, ‘over’ and ‘up’! Daddy and child clean up the toys from a day of play and get ready for dinner. Daddy uses spatial relationship words to describe where everything is and where it should all go.
I also liked the additional feature of the book being bilingual!

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This is great for learning about positional language (up, down, under etc) and will help encourage and give ideas for tidy up time. The interaction between the parent and child in the story is lovely. The text is in both Spanish and English which I love to see. It also has notes for parents about reading the book and how to extend your child's learning from it.

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The concept of this book is great, a dad helps his kid clean up his room, but the final execution is not working. The text and the illustrations don't match, which means that when they talk about putting the cubes down below the books, the dad and the kid are actually on the ground taking care of the train. Then, when they talk about bringing the teddy bears inside of the house, the teddy bears are already inside. The balls have been moved to the basket with no mention of it. In the end, the kid is supposed to help his parents set up the table by putting his spoon down, but there is no actual gesture of it in the illustration.

It is really unfortunate that the connection between text and illustrations was so unsuccessful, as it could have been a good book.. It is not usable for kids as it is.

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A wonderful way to encourage children to help clean up their toys. Which anyone with kids knows is not always an easy task. Beautiful illustrations and simple text.

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The story is simple, and would make a great story time book because of all the action books that you could get the audience to participate in. However, i hate the illustrations. They look like color blobs with no definition. I like the dual languages. I hate the not from the doctor at the beginning telling parents how to use this book with their kids, and why they should read it. Ugggg enough already.

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A loving daddy and his little one, through everyday conversation, explore spatial relationships as they relate to his little one's world.

It's tidy up time and as Daddy helps his tot clean up, up, up he introduces his toddler to math words and phrases: books go up on the top shelf, stuffed bears go back inside their house for a nap, and a rogue caboose that is stuck back behind a chair needs to go under the bed where it belongs. After all that hard work it's time to wash up up up for dinner and eat Mommy's great cooking. Up, up, up goes the spoon many, many times causing the corner of everyone's mouth to do the same. Yum! Delicious!

This book includes a note from early childhood education expert Susan C. Levine that shows parents and caregivers how everyday activities offer rich opportunities to teach early spatial math concepts. This book is based on work supported in part by TERC under a grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation.

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Clean Up, Up, Up!
by Ellen Mayer
Star Bright Books

"Clean Up, Up, Up!" teaches kids about tidying up while reinforcing principles about locations and spatial relationships like "up," "down," "under, and "behind." Books that allow young children to participate in the narration are usually a hit, and this book has several lines that young kids can "read" or repeat. This book is best suited for children aged 1-3.

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What I liked about the book was how joyous the boy looked with his dad as they cleaned up. Hopefully this inspires: more dads to read with their kids, toddlers to learn to clean up (is that wishing too much?), domestic activities to be shared. I appreciated the interracial couple and the family sitting down at the end to eat dinner together. It's also nice that it's in English and Spanish, and that the Spanish comes first. At the last page, though, I felt like there shoulder been more closure. Then I remembered that this is a book for children and was plenty long.

Overall, it's a nice book with different levels of messages that only add to both child and parent enjoyment of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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I really like seeing a book where a father is participating in domestic tasks with his child. That’s still relatively rare in toddler and baby books. It’s a nicely diverse family and it addresses helping clean up and spatial concepts. Maddie (2) really enjoyed it and even Kait (4) was interested.

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A very cute picture book about cleaning up after you are done playing with your things. THere is a place for everything and everything in its place.

I like that it is the dad helping the kid.

I like that it is in both Spanish and English.

I like that the dad relates with the child while cleaning

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A good way to show how normal cleaning up is.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

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Clean Up, Up, Up! (Board Book)
by Ellen Mayer
A father starts a game for cleaning for his young daughter, the rhyme becomes a connection between the two, its a great multicultural perspective a normal family problem with young children.

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Brilliant read and has been a help in my home after I read to my son and daughter. They were encouraged by the book

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The concept of this book was a good one, teaching children directionals. It was awesome that the book includes the story in English and Spanish. However, the book falls short when it comes to being useful for kids to learn these directions because the (beautiful) artwork doesn’t make it clear what object is being talked about to make it easy enough to see the under, next to, in or over.

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