A straightforward story of tractors, colors, and common understanding.
Bartel delivers an illustrated children’s book that introduces colors and farm equipment in a unique way.
Jesse is a young boy who, like many kids, loves things with wheels—especially tractors. This story, which features full-color cartoon illustrations by Thompson, teaches colors by using examples of real-life tractor brands that are green, blue, or red and naming other objects that share each color. Jesse’s mom’s green tractor matches the hue of cucumbers and summer leaves; the blue tractor that his uncle drives shares the color of blueberries; and the red tractor that Jesse’s neighbor drives recalls tomatoes and a stop sign. As a result, Jesse refers to objects that aren’t tractors with familiar tractor brand names; this causes confusion when he attends school and mistakenly describes grass as “John Deere,” for example, and a river as “Ford.” After an entire day of this, Jesse hatches a plan and asks his loved ones to drive their tractors to school for his classmates to see. Once the rest of Jesse’s classmates and his teacher make the connection, they understand why he was naming colors in such odd ways the day before. Their bafflement vanishes, and young readers will come away from the tale understanding that sometimes a person will make unusual associations that may require clarification. The author uses the term sour beer in several places when referring to ginger ale, and many readers may be unfamiliar with this terminology; however, this aspect fits the book’s message, intentionally or not. The illustrations portray Jesse and his family as light-skinned, while Jesse’s classmates and other characters are depicted with a diverse range of skin tones.
A straightforward story of tractors, colors, and common understanding.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2022
ISBN: 9781039149182
Page Count: 32
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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