A lively educational book that will particularly appeal to animal and car enthusiasts.
Personified letters participate in a car race in Cox’s alphabet picture book.
This abecedarian work introduces young readers to the festive activity at the Alphabet Grand Prix, an event where letters with faces race against each other in cars. In verse using alliteration emphasized by capitalized words, the text describes each participant letter, and an accompanying illustration provides additional details. For instance, the letter B drives a “Brown Buick” and escorts a bluebird and balloons, and an elephant rides on E’s “Electric speedster.” The competition intensifies as the letters race; for example, as “R’s Roadster Races by so fast, / Like a Rolling ball of fire!” and “S’s Sportster picks up Speed,” “T Thinks it’s his Time…To make it Through / That checkered finish line.” The race concludes in an “alphabet photo finish!” This cheerful book offers whimsical elements and includes unusual terms like jalopyand vehicle manufacturer names that car-racing fans will enjoy spotting. The friendly, quirky-looking creatures are appealing, and the text’s tight focus on alphabet concepts offers learning opportunities. Kinsey’s hand-drawn illustrations use bright colors and textures, and cleverly detailed spreads include fun elements, such as a jumpsuit-wearing orange tiger who waves checkered flags. Onomatopoeic words, such as WOOSHand ROAR, also swirl around scenes.
A lively educational book that will particularly appeal to animal and car enthusiasts.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Lakeside Press
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character.
One of Boynton's signature characters celebrates Halloween.
It's Halloween time, and Pookie the pig is delighted. Mom helps the little porker pick out the perfect Halloween costume, a process that spans the entire board book. Using an abcb rhyme scheme, Boynton dresses Pookie in a series of cheerful costumes, including a dragon, a bunny, and even a caped superhero. Pookie eventually settles on the holiday classic, a ghost, by way of a bedsheet. Boynton sprinkles in amusing asides to her stanzas as Pookie offers costume commentary ("It's itchy"; "It's hot"; "I feel silly"). Little readers will enjoy the notion of transforming themselves with their own Halloween costumes while reading this book, and a few parents may get some ideas as well. Boynton's clean, sharp illustrations are as good as ever. This is Pookie's first holiday title, but readers will surely welcome more.
A pleasant holiday spent with a perfectly charming character. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-553-51233-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Robin Corey/Random
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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