An early-reader book to build on.
An accessible, rhyming text drives this story-with-a-twist about a construction site, inviting new readers to hone their emerging skills.
Initial spreads depict a variety of vehicles engaged in digging, scooping, lifting and so on, detailing the activities of a construction site. Varied visual perspectives in the art draw the eyes to the different machines, but they can be disorienting—particularly in the worm’s-eye view on the spread reading “Digger’s teeth bite the ground,” which does not show the “[t]racks skid[ding] around” as indicated by the text. On the other hand, while some readers may wonder why the vehicles’ operators are not seen in the art, this omission is satisfyingly resolved in a long-shot spread that depicts a group of children playing with toy trucks in a sand pile. The vehicles are clearly miniversions of those from prior pages, and it’s refreshing to see both boys and girls and at least one child of color included in the group “working like a team.” From here, the narrative draws the children’s play to a conclusion by book’s end, providing readers with a fictive parallel to their own accomplishments in finishing the book: “Good work, crew!”
An early-reader book to build on. (Early reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-96910-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wormell (Blue Rabbit and the Runaway Wheel, see above) seamlessly blends landscape and playscape in this tale of a wonderfully catastrophic train wreck. As if it’s not bad enough that blubbery Mrs. Walrus, Mr. Bear, and Mrs. Elephant forcibly wedge themselves into the train’s tiny cars for a shopping trip into town, on their return they’re carrying 600 sardines, 15 loaves of bread, pots of honey, and a mountain of fresh fruit. “ ‘It’s just a matter of balance,’ ” Mrs. Elephant cheerfully assures the worried conductor. Indeed it is—until a bee crawls up Mrs. Elephant’s trunk, prompting a monumental sneeze. Groceries are scattered everywhere. What to do? Invite everyone to a picnic! Rather than his usual polychrome woodcuts, Wormell creates soft-edged, colored-pencil drawings here for a “younger,” softer look, depicting a simply carved wooden train sturdily pulling three hilariously overloaded cars. Afterward, willing trunks and flippers reset the tumbled cars onto their tracks, and off the train chugs, leaving the bloated picnickers strewn about like beached whales. Ending on a peaceful, satiated note, this explosive episode makes a first-rate entry in the annals of picture-book sneezes. (Picture book. 4-6)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-83986-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: McElderry
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A glory ride for young car, truck, train, bus and trolley devotees.
In a visual feast for fans of wheeled vehicles large and small, Biggs presents a series of high-density street scenes done in an amiably rumpled cartoon style.
Driving in from the ’burbs to a generic metropolis, a lad and his dad gloss each big, double-page spread—“ ‘Do trucks work the same way as cars?’ / ‘Many of them do. Trucks also have jobs, like cars’ ”—as they glide through heavy traffic, past a construction site and under an elevated highway. They wait for fleets of bikes and motorcycles to pass and park at last near a train station to pick up Mom. Along with sparely labeled close-up or cutaway views of a car, a bicycle, a big truck, a subway station, an RV and other specimens, the author sets up the family reunion at the end with a giant double-gatefold aerial view of an entire neighborhood packed with traffic, pedestrians, local businesses and signs, each one individually distinct. Jokey side conversations (one firefighter tells another, "There's no fire. It's just a cat"; his companion asks, "Should we get some milk?") play off more serious and informative dialogue. A diagram of a car is accompanied by a disquisition on the relationship between a car battery and the motor, as well as the fact that "[a]n electric car uses batteries and electric motor. No gas!"
A glory ride for young car, truck, train, bus and trolley devotees. (Informational picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-195809-0
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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