cover image My Five Senses

My Five Senses

Margaret Miller. Simon & Schuster, $16 (1pp) ISBN 978-0-671-79168-1

Turning the pages of Miller's ( Where Does It Go? ) elegantly simple photo-essay is like freshly experiencing all five senses. After an opening spread that shows five portraits of children of varied races and that bears the caption, ``I have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two ears and two hands,'' the book goes on to explore each of the senses in turn. Each oversize page contains a single, brightly but unobtrusively framed photo featuring one of the children demonstrating various kinds of sights, sounds, tastes, smells and textures. The images show both the pleasant and unpleasant--smelling a big bowl of fresh popcorn but also garbage, tasting sticky sweet watermelon as well as medicine--and the children's natural expressions convey a range of reactions. Unlike many books of this type, Miller's includes refreshingly offbeat objects besides the usual flowers, ice cream and fire engine siren; her models smell a horse, taste the ocean and feel finger paints. Young readers will recognize and relate to these well-chosen subjects, and will want to duplicate the action on the pages. Ages 2-4. (May)