LITTLE TRACTOR'S YEAR

A helpful vehicle supports a family through a busy farming year.

Whether plowing snow, transporting apples, or delivering animal feed, Little Tractor is indispensable in every season! Starting in January, our hero has a new chore and farm implement to use each month. There’s plenty of educational potential as a supremely competent farmer and child tap maple trees to collect sap in March and “load pumpkins till my bucket’s full!” in October. A reference guide in the backmatter identifying the equipment, especially lesser-known tools such as the baler and the wood splitter, will definitely pique machinery lovers’ interest. Wolff relies on rhyming couplets that chug along as proficiently as Little Tractor; her verse is comfortably paced, with just the right amount of information. Her tranquil, darkly outlined lino-block and ink illustrations capture the idyllic essence of a New England farming community. Wolff leverages the agrarian setting brilliantly, creating a picturesque scene of a verdant orchard dripping with ruby apples; another page depicts the kite-flying child, diminutive against expansive chartreuse fields. The month names are cleverly incorporated into the spacious double-page spreads. Some readers might find Little Tractor’s anthropomorphized cartoon face, which switches between grill and dashboard, a bit oddly superimposed onto the otherwise realistic art. Little Tractor’s owners have pale skin; a diverse group of people attend a Fourth of July parade.

Tractor enthusiasts will want to put this book in gear over and over again.