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
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
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