Children who already love the Little Blue Truck series will be ready to move on to a holiday celebration with Tractor Mac.
In this entry in the Tractor Mac series, the anthropomorphic red tractor assists with transporting a gigantic evergreen tree into town for the annual Christmas tree–lighting ceremony.
The region around Stony Meadow Farm is getting walloped by a snowstorm, and Tractor Mac is ready to help after the addition of tire chains and a front bucket loader. Farmer Bill and Tractor Mac work together in the snow to dig out Sibley the horse and the huge sled carrying the Christmas tree. On their way into town, Bill and Mac also dig out a dump truck, a fire truck, and a school bus, all on their way to the celebration. The line of vehicles parades into town, following the dump truck as it plows the way. The townspeople decorate the tree and celebrate with songs and food for all at a happy, old-fashioned town party. The humorous, short text includes lots of funny comments from the farm animals and repeated sound effects from Tractor Mac as he works. Appealing watercolor-and-pencil illustrations are filled with swirling snow, talking animals, and vehicles with friendly, bulging eyes who are quite believable in their earnest concern to get the job done and the party started. A bonus feature included on the endpapers shows labeled diagrams of the fire truck and Tractor Mac.
Children who already love the Little Blue Truck series will be ready to move on to a holiday celebration with Tractor Mac. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-374-30112-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Cookie-cutter predictability.
After all the daring escapes in the How To Catch… series, will the kids be able to catch Santa?
Oddly, previous installments saw the children trying (and failing) to catch an elf and a reindeer, but both are easily captured in this story. Santa, however, is slippery. Tempted but not fooled by poinsettias, a good book (attached to a slingshot armed with a teddy bear projectile), and, of course, milk and cookies, Santa foils every plan. The hero in a red suit has a job to do. Presents must be placed, and lists must be checked. He has no time for traps and foolery (except if you’re the elf, who falls for every one of them). Luckily, Santa helps the little rascal escape each time. Little is new here—the kids resort to similar snares found in previous works: netting, lures, and technological wonders such as the Santa Catcher 5000. Although the rhythm falters quite a bit (“How did we get out you ask? / It looked like we were done for. / Santa’s magic is very real, / and I cannot reveal more”), fans of the series may not mind. Santa and Christmas just might be enough to overcome the flaws. Santa and the elf are light-skinned, one of the children is brown-skinned, and the other presents as Asian. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Cookie-cutter predictability. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781728274270
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2023
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A forgettable effort that fails to capture any of the magical charm of Santa’s story. (Picture book. 3-6)
Wallace and Elkerton continue their series about catching elusive mythical creatures (How to Catch a Leprechaun, 2016, etc.) with this Christmas story about an elf who must avoid traps constructed by children before Santa’s annual visit.
The unnamed elf narrator is the sole helper traveling with Santa on his delivery rounds on Christmas Eve, with each house featuring a different type of trap for elves. The spunky elf avoids a mechanical “elf snatcher,” hidden in a plate of cookies, as well as simple traps made of tinsel, double-sided tape, and a cardboard box concealing a mean-looking cat. Another trap looks like a bomb hidden in a box of candy, and a complicated trap in a maze has an evil cowboy clown with a branding iron, leading to the elf’s cry, “Hey, you zapped my tushy!” The bomb trap and the branding iron seem to push the envelope of child-made inventions. The final trap is located in a family grocery store that’s booby-trapped with a “Dinner Cannon” shooting out food, including a final pizza that the elf and Santa share. The singsong, rhyming text has a forced cheeriness, full of golly-jolly-holly Christmas spirit and too many exclamation marks, as well as rhyming word pairs that miss the mark. (No, little elf-boy, “smarter” and “harder” do not rhyme.) Bold, busy illustrations in a cartoon style have a cheeky appeal with a focus on the freckle-faced white elf with auburn curls and a costume with a retro vibe. (Santa is also white.)
A forgettable effort that fails to capture any of the magical charm of Santa’s story. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-4631-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2016
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