A playful touch-and-feel exploration of toy vehicles.
Noodle the panda, of refreshingly indeterminate gender, plays through these pages with a model digger, a tricycle and various toy cars. The tactile and shiny elements embedded in each page are varied enough to engage interest, especially the clever rearview mirror on Noodle’s ride-on car. While the rhyming text, with one line per page, is a bit minimal and the title is deceptive (Noodle really only drives two cars), the inviting art is the attraction here. The graphic cartoon settings with clean, round lines frame Noodle nicely, and the panda’s world is populated with familiar and easily recognizable objects, toys and animals. Noodle, with oversized head, eyes and ears, is just as endearingly playful here as in other books in the series.
While this newcomer may not reach the superstar status of Maisy, Max or Spot, it is worth taking Noodle for a spin. (Board book. 1-3)
