Rural readers unfamiliar with the pace of the urban rat race will be amused and enlightened by this excursion from suburbia to Manhattan as chronicled by Loomis (The Hippo Hop, 1995, etc.) and the astonishing Takabayashi. For a city children (and their parents, looking on), it may be too close to reality to be properly appreciated. The verse dashes through two rush hours (``Rumbling,/Roaring,/Jiggling,/Jumping''), as people in cars, buses, trains, buses, on foot, and on bikes participate in a mad scramble to get where they need to be in the morning and head frantically back home at night. In between, they are depicted working mostly without cheer at their jobs. In this Koyaanisqatsi with words, the sheer number of busy illustrations is fatiguing, the pacing jars, and the repetition of blank, anonymous faces (or, more often, angry and obviously stressed visages) is frightening. While adults may appreciate the irony (intended or not), and children will gain a certain amount of gratification from poring over the crammed images, the book imparts a sense of harried hopelessness that's almost overwhelming. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-395-69129-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
A terrific choice for the preschool crowd.
Little Blue Truck learns that he can be as important as the big yellow school bus.
Little Blue Truck is driving along the country road early one morning when he and driver friend Toad come across a big, yellow, shiny school bus. The school bus is friendly, and so are her animal passengers, but when Little Blue Truck wishes aloud he could do an important job like hers, the school bus says only a bus of her size and features can do this job. Little Blue Truck continues along, a bit envious, and finds Piggy crying by the side of the road, having missed the bus. Little Blue tells Piggy to climb in and takes a creative path to the school—one the bus couldn’t navigate—and with an adventurous spirit, gets Piggy there right on time. The simple, rhyming text opens the story with a sweet, fresh, old-fashioned tone and continues with effortlessly rhythmical lines throughout. Little Blue is a brave, helpful, and hopeful character young readers will root for. Adults will feel a rush of nostalgia and delight in sharing this story with children as the animated vehicles and animals in innocent, colorful countryside scenes evoke wholesome character traits and values of growth, grit, and self-acceptance. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A terrific choice for the preschool crowd. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-41224-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not astonishingly go-out-and-buy-it-at-graduation inspirational, but all it takes is one seed of change to be planted.
Imagination soars—quite literally—when a little girl follows her own set of rules.
Every year Oak Hill School has a go-kart race called the Going Places contest. Students are given identical go-kart kits with a precise set of instructions. And of course, every single kart ends up exactly the same. Every one, that is, except Maya’s. Maya is a dreamy artist, and she would rather sketch birds in her backyard than get caught up in the competition. When she finally does start working, she uses the parts in the go-kart box but creates something completely different. No one ever said it had to be a go-kart. Maya’s creative thinking inspires Rafael, her neighbor (and the most enthusiastic Going Places contestant), to ask to team up. The instructions never say they couldn’t work together, either! An ode to creativity and individuality to be sure, but the Reynolds brothers are also taking a swipe at modern education: Endless repetition and following instructions without question create a culture of conformity. Hopefully now, readers will see infinite possibility every time the system hands them an identical go-kart box.
Not astonishingly go-out-and-buy-it-at-graduation inspirational, but all it takes is one seed of change to be planted. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-6608-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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