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
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
