CARS AND HOW THEY GO

by Joanna Cole ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1983

It was a happy thought to combine Cole's gift for simple, cogent explanation and Gibbons' knack for simple, almost-mechanical drawing (thus also overcoming Gibbons' handicaps, manifest in Trucks and its predecessors, as a conceptualizer and writer). Visually, this appeals because there's always some mechanism to be seen in the cutaway car, along with a floppy-eared brown dog in the back seat. (The driver is a girl of ambiguous, identification-inducing age.) The text begins with starting the car; focuses on the need for a power source to turn the wheels (once, it was horses; someday it may be the sun); demonstrates, in logical order, how each of the car's systems works; takes note of alternatives (disk and drum brakes) or divergences from the norm (front-wheel drive, air-cooled engines, etc.). You can literally use the book to explain any part of the car's operation to a child--or turn children loose for a crisp, sunny, self-contained course of instruction.

Pub Date: March 1, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crowell

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION