Review of “What Is the Shape of My Ears?” by Lisa Weckbacher, PhD

Score: 94+/100 (9.4+ out of 10)

Education should be fun. It should be interesting. It should be exciting!
Kids should look forward to learning.
And that definitely comes through in Lisa Weckbacher's books!

What Is the Shape of My Ears? is yet another adorable, colorful, and educational children's book by the incredible Lisa Weckbacher, a PhD in education with three master's degrees!

Weckbacker is also the author of What Is the Shape of My Egg?, a previous Outstanding Creator Award winner which featured an unforgettable cast of farm-animal characters (particularly chickens) and an eye-opening lesson about shapes (particularly circles)!

Likewise, this book also features a colorful and charismatic cast of farm-animal characters (including a cameo from Silkie, a chicken from the previous book) and also centers on geometric shapes, specifically triangles.

This book takes place on a farm in Montana. It follows Pearl, a highly-intelligent miniature donkey with a keen sense of hearing. Duke, a humble and curious miniature horse who LOVES to eat, becomes curious about Pearl's heightened sense hearing, which helps her to keep the farm animals alert about the presence of predators like foxes.

It is swiftly noted that Pearl's ears are shaped like triangles, which becomes the subject and focus of this book.

No, they're not actual triangles, as Pearl clarifies, but they are triangle-shaped.

Actually, BOTH Pearl and Duke have triangular-shaped ears, begging Duke to wonder why his don't seem to work as well as Pearl's. Humorously, it's pointed out that they actually do, it's just that Duke is often too distracted by eating to pay attention while Pearl takes her responsibility (of keeping the farm safe) seriously.

Duke is SUCH a cutie! He's one of the most adorable characters in this contest, even outshining his co-star, Pearl, in that regard. It's hard to describe what makes Duke so cute and appealing, but it might be because of how silly and easily distracted he is along with how his mane seems to cover his face like an emo kid.

Pearl is no slouch either. Her intelligence and sense of duty and responsibility are commendable.

Anyway, this is a much more advanced book than we remember What Is the Shape of My Egg? being. It gets into the weeds and details about how triangles have different degrees of angles, some wide and some narrow. Pearl draws lines in the hay/dirt/sand to show and teach these things to Duke and the reader(s). Duke adorably contributes by dotting the ends of the angles with his hooves. Gosh, he's so freakin' cute.

There's even a brief section or teaser about quadrilaterals! So, maybe that'll give you an idea of how this series is becoming more and more advanced.

It's also a bit more wordy than the previous book and seems to take a lot longer to develop. We finally get into the lesson around page 14 (out of about 32). One real issue we had with this book is that the text was too small a lot of the time, compounding the wordiness problem. It was actually hard to see the text on pages 7 and 8 (against the bright-green background). What really would have helped would've been increasing the font size, bolding it, or lifting it. It became less of an issue later on as our eyes adjusted, but it did dampen our consumption of the product a bit. We sometimes had to squint and reread parts.

A lot of the other animals in this book are mostly relegated to a short section near the middle, but they are great to see! Miyah, the ranch dog (a border-collie), is actually blind, which was an interesting touch, providing some representation for those with disabilities. One of the cats is named Chicken, for some reason, which is kinda hilarious and kinda confusing, especially since there are actual chickens in this book including protagonists from the last one. A part of us kinda wished we got to see bit more of these other animals. Like, we briefly see Miyah, then see Miyah running through the field with the cows. Our time with these other animals just seems so brief and cut short compared to the lesson about the triangles and angles.

However, this book has it where it counts: it's cute, it's enjoyable, it's entertaining, and it's educational.

Check it out on Amazon!