FICTION
Released: Sept. 1, 2005
"An excellent addition to every primary teacher's bookshelf or home library. (Picture book. 4-9)"
NATURE
Released: April 30, 2000
"May be enjoyed as a poem or as a springboard for nature study. (sunflower facts, names of birds) (Picture book. 3-7)"
Schaefer starts with one sunflower growing tall in her garden and shows how just one makes many.
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Released: April 1, 1998
"This evocative book could be paired to nice effect with Elisha Cooper's sunny Country Fair (1997). (Picture book. 3-8)"
Crews (Shortcut, 1992, etc.) uses, to great effect, the contrast of the night sky and the gaudy lights of typical fair amusements in his picture book of very few words but very kinetic images.
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Released: Oct. 1, 1996
ABC BOOKS
Released: April 1, 1996
"Crews brings to each page his elemental, suggestive brushwork: ketchup that is thick and rich and hard to shake out of the bottle, water that is splashy and cold. (Picture book. 5+)"
Shannon (April Showers, 1995, etc.) has created an alphabet book that demands of readers imaginative, often arbitrary leaps, from what is to what will be. ``B is for eggs—tomorrow's BIRDS'' and ``R is for grapes—tomorrow's RAISINS.'' Wheat to flour, clay to pot, caterpillar to moth: Most of the letter play will spark recognition, but the associations of a few are fairly oblique for ABC readers.
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FICTION
Released: Oct. 1, 1993
"Of most appeal is Crew's innovative way with these simple, powerful graphics in an arresting (some might even say dissonant) range of colors. (Picture book. 3-7)"
A wooden box—an empty cube—makes a fine receptacle for items signifying, one by one, the months of the year, whose names accumulate in the left-hand margin as the objects—``a red foil heart, a robin's feather, a purple eggshell,'' etc., in hand- tinted b&w photos combined for a collage-like effect—are introduced and then mount up in the box.
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Released: Oct. 23, 1992
"A breathless tour-de-force for train lovers of any age. (Picture book. 5-8)"
In a return to Bigmama's (1991) small Florida community for a second story based on Crews's childhood memories, a group of children walking through a narrow railroad cut have to dive into the brambles when an unexpected train rockets past.
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Released: March 27, 1992
"Unusually handsome and useful. (Picture book. 3-8)"
In the style of Giganti and Crews's How Many Snails? (1989), 11 opportunities for children to begin to grasp the concept of multiplication—or simply to count items that may mount into the 50s.
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Released: Oct. 23, 1991
"A grand alternative to the plethora of predictable books about white kids visiting grandparents on stereotypical family farms. (Picture book. 4-8)"
Beginning with the ride on the old Southern Railway car ("colored" says the sign on the wall), the sights, sounds, and warm delights of a summer visit to Grandma in Crews's own childhood—a three-day trip from somewhere up north.
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Released: Oct. 20, 1986
"Crews' style has become familiar, through several fine books; this is a worthy companion to the award-winning Freight Train and Truck."
With minimal text and bright-color illustrations, Crews captures the essence of a plane journey."Boarding. . .
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Released: Aug. 1, 1984
"Altogether: more an out-line of the daily school bus to-and-from than a dramatization."
There's probably no more potent visual statement in American child-life than the ubiquitous yellow school bus.
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Released: April 18, 1983
"With less martial spirit than high-stepping, holiday hijinks—a parade to please even the dyspeptic."
Visually, one of Crews' snazziest creations—and pretty terrific at capturing the many moods and shadings of a parade too.
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Released: Oct. 1, 1982
"And, impersonalized as the ride is, it's a whole lot less mesmerizing then watching the real thing."
A simulated ride on a carousel—via the blurrrrr of a moving camera—in lieu of an exciting new perceptual experience, such as that afforded by Truck.
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Released: March 15, 1982
"Much of this, however, approaches the here-and-now norm—executed with greater flair."
The colors are muted, grayed—but that's not the only way Crews' new book differs from Freight Train, Truck, etc. For one thing, it's mostly an album of types of ships found in a harbor, each precisely rendered.
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Released: Feb. 9, 1981
"All have an immediate impact, but the best are not immediately exhausted."
Though this hasn't the excitement, the page-to-page motion, or the vibrant originality of Freight Train, Trucks, and Rain, Crews' projection of city and country night scenes has its own rhythm and mood as a picture-poem on the theme of lights at night.
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Released: April 21, 1980
"To call due attention here would take Crews' flashing arrows and letters as large as his TRUCKING."
Released: Oct. 16, 1978
"Clean, clear, brillant design, with no drag."
Released: March 19, 1968
"Count this one out."
Mr. Crews made an auspicious entrance with We Read: A to Z, which did things with the alphabet that nobody'd done before; this does the same things with numbers that everybody's done before, and better.
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Released: March 1, 1967
"We read, we see, we understand, we abzorb."
