My First Book of Shapes: With Lift-Up Flaps & a Pop-Up, Too!

Gatefold flaps and pop-ups, multicolored type and a cheerful mouse cast add a modicum of pizzazz to these entrants in an overcrowded field. The alphabet book presents each letter in upper and lower case, once printed primer-style within triple-ruled lines and again on ladyfinger-shaped flaps. Lift the flap and find a captioned picture of something beginning with the featured letter (a smiling mouse plays the Xylophone; more smiling mice model Uniforms). At book's end, the mice assemble a pop-up alphabet. Atop the flaps of the companion book, the mice gambol across designated shapes--open the flaps to see a group of similarly shaped objects (behind ``Circle'' lie a target, wading pool, plate, hoop, etc.) Murphy intelligently pairs flat shapes with their three-dimensional counterparts--circle with sphere, square with cube, triangle with cone--although the technique backfires with the rectangle (how many of us refer to ``cuboids''?). The finale compensates for this minor flaw, squaring the book with a carnival of pop-ups and cut-outs. Ages 2-5. (Mar.)