Stiff and stylized in the polished deco-style paintings, Angelo looks like a mannequin as he goes about pumping gas at Lucky's all-night garage, circa 1939. As his shift progresses, Angelo serves a foxy lady biker who outlines her mouth ``with the brightest red lipstick Angelo has ever seen,'' an opera-singing Italian papa and his five children, and a bus full of cranky musicians. A bride and groom in a leaky convertible sit out a sudden storm (``some honeymoon''), and a fashionable drunk in ``top hat and tails as rumpled/as an unmade bed'' mooches a nickel for the candy machine. The jazzy design and bold, shiny artwork command more attention than the story; the string of unrelated incidents will recall old movies and other sources of nostalgia for adults but may not satisfy young children. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-7868-0200-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
Passenger trains may be disappearing from the American landscape but Collicutt’s resplendent illustrations portray them in all their streamlined glory. He puts trains in scenes resembling old railroad calendar shots, showing them winding through the countryside, or depicting flashy steam engines and diesels pulling away from futuristic cities. The text is basic—“This is a train in the country. This is a train in the city,”—which gives the pictures obvious precedence. Endpapers attach names and countries of origin to the various types, from the Japanese high speed electric train to the Santa Fe Super Chief. Collicutt offers a tribute void of fustiness, a salute that looks too “now” to be nostalgic. (Picture book. 2-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-37493-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
Casey Jones, the King of the Iron Horse when the railroads ruled the land, gets polished to a hero's gleam in Drummond's rhymed telling of the stormy night he died. It was a hundred years ago that Casey pulled into the station aboard his Illinois 638, there to get the message from the company to point his train south to Memphis. As the train gets fired up to move through the wild, rain-lashed night, Drummond gives readers a vest-pocket history on the importance of the railroad in binding the nation together (and not incidentally in destroying the Native American way of life; be prepared to do some explaining to young readers here). Once out of town, Casey opens her up: "The train was full of people / from all down the line— / mothers and children / all asleep at the time— / and the milk and the mailbags / from all over the state, / and everyone knew they were / running late." Don't stop to quibble that Casey is being reckless by flying through the dark—“Casey Jones, / he'd never been late"—just be thankful that when he finally sees the flagman alerting him to a stalled freight train around the bend, he manages to save everybody aboard, except himself. You can hear the banjos pickin' in the background to Drummond's verse, which keeps the rhythm of the well-known folk song. His line-and-wash artwork is a transporting thing of beauty, mixing pages of multiple vignettes with double-paged spreads. Sometimes the text is handwritten; sometimes it's typed in the clouds. The variety adds to the bustle. An author's note explaining what little is known of the real Casey rounds out the book. "Wooo . . . oooh!" (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 23, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-31175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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