A book that reads like a poor attempt at inducting girls into the mostly male bastion of trucks and large machinery. Dig and Dug are ``dumb and dumber'' as two inept, not-so- handymen. When the farmer's tractor breaks down, Dig and Uncle Dug, with the help of Daisy, try to use a pickup, tow truck, forklift, bulldozer, backhoe, and finally dump truck to deliver fruit to Mrs. Green's store. Intended silliness becomes slapstick as the lamebrained duo muddles through one bad idea after another. Gumby- like multiracial characters appear amidst cut-paper props, and the effect is a series of stiff scenes that have none of the fluidity of clay animation. Young truck-lovers will find none of the kindergarten humor of James Marshall's The Stupids here, and while Daisy solves the fruit problem, it's by design and not deed in this piece of gender equity gone awry. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Oct. 23, 1996
ISBN: 0-7894-1107-5
Page Count: 20
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
Should appeal to all the little grump trucks hauling their feelings about.
When dump trucks get angry (really, really angry), head for the hills!
Little Dump Truck is “the happiest member of the construction crew.” Assisting everyone from Excavator to Bulldozer, she hauls her load merrily. But sometimes things just don’t go her way. In rapid succession, dirt is blown in her face, a tire is punctured, and a flock of birds mistake her for a lavatory. Now she’s Little Grump Truck, and the exceedingly poor advice from her co-workers (“Ignore it. You’ll be fine”; “Shake it off!”) pushes her too far. After Little Grump Truck unloads (figuratively and literally) on her colleagues, everyone else has the “grumpies” too. It isn’t until she closes her eyes and focuses that Little Dump Truck is able to clear her mind and lighten her mood. Apologies are in order, and soon everything is humming (for the time being, anyway). Though the narrative doesn’t drill the message home, both child and adult readers alike will hopefully pick up on the fact that pithy aphorisms are maddeningly unhelpful when one is in a bad mood. Gray skies accompany the dump truck’s mood, which is depicted as an ever morphing agglomeration of hard, black scribbles. The accompanying art serves its purpose, investing its trucks with personality via time-honored headlight, windshield-wiper, and grille facial features. Little Dump Truck has a purple cab and green bed and a single lash on each headlight eye. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Should appeal to all the little grump trucks hauling their feelings about. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30081-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As if from a movie camera's viewfinder, a fantasy drive in a hot little car enfolds. The viewpoint is the driver's: Readers see the top of the bold, colorful steering wheel, stylized jazzy dials on the dashboard, part of the hood, and whatever lies ahead. ``Yikes! Look out for that cow! Mooooo! Turn right, right, right!'' The car goes through a barn, off a mountain, underwater, through a tunnel, and ends up on a race track, in competition to a first-place finish. The surprising obstacles and locales add to the frantic pace of the text, which includes lots of opportunities for honks and beeps. Adults may find the spreads monotonous—the front windshield and dashboard don't vary, of course, but that's precisely why preschoolers will love it. The bold drawings feature the heavy black lines found in many board books, but with more sophisticated shapes; Haynes plays with the signs, racing stripes, and the checkerboard curve of a track, fully conveying you-are-there immediacy to children. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-32502-9
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
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