The previous collaborations between Marthe Jocelyn and Tom Slaughter were elegant books that broke concepts of size or quantity down to their essence. Spare in text and image almost to the point of being like collections of preschool Zen koans, Eats and One, Some, Many were rare examples of books that managed to engage very young children while still imparting a lesson effectively and intelligently.

Same Same is firmly in the tradition of those books, though with some slight differences. Slaughter’s boldly coloured paper-cut illustrations are here, as is Jocelyn’s utterly fat-free text. The concept being (literally) illustrated here is that of similarities – we get “things that make music” (tambourine, guitar, bird), “things that fly” (bird, airplane, bee), “striped things” (bee, zebra, snake), and so on. In each case, the final item from one group carries on to the next (a very subtle pattern that kids can be nudged to discover for themselves).

One small change here is in the central concept being explored. Associative relationships are a staple of board books and books for very young readers, but given the rarefied treatment by Jocelyn and Slaughter, the concept stays broad and abstract. Repeated images aside, it’s not always clear what the connection is between successive relationships; the shifts feel a little arbitrary, meaning that a child may not get caught up in the book the way they would with something a little bouncier and more extroverted. Also, the book does not build to anything (as much as such a book can really build to anything), and just kind of peters out.

There’s no denying the oddly haunting quality of Jocelyn and Slaughter’s creations, but it’s hard not to wish they would loosen up a little.