A toddler plays king of the world as he maneuvers his toy vehicles around the track. Not only does he report traffic, he creates it. Enhanced with a toy robot, baseballs, chess pieces, a teddy bear and pencils, the track is multilevel, varied and propped up with stacks of books and shoeboxes. Included are trucks, trains, helicopters, buses, fire engines and of course, traffic lights. All this is conveyed, in great majority, by the illustrations that offer a bird’s eye view of the workings of a child’s clever imagination. The rhyming tempo is simple and straightforward, covering several automotive modes of transportation and their trappings: “Red lights flash. / Rail cars roll. /At the booth, / pay a toll.” Simply put, this is geared toward the youngest of car-crazy kids. The artwork is lively and rendered in thick, eye-catching colors with active strokes that provide a sense of motion. Not exactly Go Car, Go, but, nonetheless, a blithe and youthful lap read. (Picture book. 2-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-15-202582-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Gulliver/Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2005
Readers will thrill to the sense of discovery and exploration the girl experiences: “It is possible.” (Picture book. 2-4)
The witty minimalism of the black-and-white line artwork by Swiss illustrator Albertine in this extreme landscape-format children’s book belies the psychological depth of the content.
A child is traveling by train from her mother’s home in the city to her grandmother’s home, which is “practically on the other side of the world.” The train, the only color element of the whole book, moves through a landscape that begins as a modern European cityscape (plenty of signs in French for language practice!) and increasingly becomes more surreal and Seuss-ian as the landscape becomes more rural. The story is a gently veiled moral tale of resolution and independence. In spite of the admonitions of her mother and grandmother, who tell her that it is impossible to know the whole world, the child asserts that she intends to travel everywhere, and thus she will be able to know the whole world. Her assertions of independence and determination gain momentum as the train continues. The fact that the train does arrive at its far-distant destination, reuniting the girl with her grandmother, suggests that the child is right and that adults are too rigid in their thinking.
Readers will thrill to the sense of discovery and exploration the girl experiences: “It is possible.” (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: April 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4521-1934-2
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
“All aboard for Dreamland!” is the clarion call of this rhythmic bedtime read-aloud that opens with a giant megaphone blaring out a wavy set of railroad tracks. Train purists, though, will have to use their imaginations, as the first vehicle on the track is a white unicorn on wheels, transporting a motley crew of beaming, big-nosed passengers. The magical mystery train transmogrifies next into a series of wheeled buildings: “Full steam ahead to Wiggletown! / We zoom down Zig Zag Hill, / winding ’round and upside down / till no one can sit still.” As the train chugs through the land of Strrrretch (“Chugga-chugga chuckle!”), a taffy-like pink elephant tickles its ears with its toes. As in many bedtime stories, the illustrations optimistically invoke the power of suggestion; the characters get sleepy and close their eyes as the train heads into “the drowsy town of Yawwwwwn.” Valério’s brightly colored, stylized paintings, textured with visible brushstrokes and the occasional cutout piece of graph paper, are just jaunty enough to fuel this giddy trip to Dreamland. (Picture book. 2-4)
Pub Date: June 3, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6127-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008
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