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FARM LIFE

“Gray barn, gray barn, what do you house? / Nine straw-filled stalls with nine sleepy sows.” In this artful tribute to rural living, Spurr (A Pig Named Perrier, 2002, etc.) visits five increasingly well-populated barns, each a different color, before arriving at last at the white farmhouse, where “a family to love” links all the parts together into “the whole and the heart” of the farm. A farmer and two children make their rounds in Björkman’s (The Grisly Gazette, 2002, etc.) watercolor sketches, bursting joyously out of the horse barn into lush grass, slogging through mud with a feed pail, chuckling over piglets and kittens, arriving home to dinner and a cozy get-together in front of—not the TV, but a wood-burning stove. Idealized? Yes. Heartwarming? Definitely. And a natural story time companion to other barnyard visits, such as Nancy Tafuri’s This Is the Farmer (1994) or Margaret Wise Brown’s Big Red Barn (reissued 1989, illus. by Felicia Bond). (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: March 15, 2003

ISBN: 0-8234-1777-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Holiday House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2003

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ALL BY MYSELF!

Essentially a follow-up to Robert Kraus’s Leo the Late Bloomer (1971) and like tales of developing competency, this follows an exuberant child from morning wash-up to lights out at night, cataloguing the tasks and skills he has mastered. Activities include dressing himself and joining in school activities, choosing his own books, helping with dinner and other household responsibilities, and taking a bath alone before bedtime. In Aliki’s sunny, simplified pictures, it’s a child’s world, seen from low angles and with adults putting in only occasional appearances. Like the lad, the fitfully rhymed text gallops along, sometimes a little too quickly—many illustrations are matched to just a word or two, so viewers aren’t always given much time to absorb one image before being urged on to the next—but underscoring the story’s bustling energy. Young readers and pre-readers will respond enthusiastically to this child’s proud self-assurance, and be prompted to take stock of their own abilities too. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2000

ISBN: 0-06-028929-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000

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TRASHY TOWN

Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches...

Listeners will quickly take up the percussive chorus—“Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy town! Is the trash truck full yet? NO”—as they follow burly Mr. Gilly, the garbage collector, on his rounds from park to pizza parlor and beyond.

Flinging cans and baskets around with ease, Mr. Gilly dances happily through streetscapes depicted with loud colors and large, blocky shapes; after a climactic visit to the dump, he roars home for a sudsy bath.

Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches Eve Merriam’s Bam Bam Bam (1995), also illustrated by Yaccarino, for sheer verbal and visual volume. (Picture book. 5-7)

Pub Date: April 30, 1999

ISBN: 0-06-027139-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999

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