A cute and colorful tale of trucks.
Riera’s picture-book debut sees a fleet of heavy work vehicles demolish one building and construct another.
In a city populated by windscreen-eyed vehicles (very much in the mold of Pixar’s Cars), several brightly colored trucks are about to start work: steamroller Smooth Operator, excavator Scoopy Doo, and many others, with some drinking gasoline and one pooping by-products into a portable toilet. “It’s morning, and the trucks arrive. / With engines on, they’re set to drive. / Then, one by one, they take their cue. / So…what do trucks all love to do?” They start by knocking a building down, breaking up the debris, and hauling it away. Then, after making use of truck-size measurement equipment, they construct a skyscraper from the ground up. Riera narrates in rhyming couplets, supplying a work-song rhythm that emphasizes the sense of fun and cooperation. The busy bustle of the construction site emerges through inventive variations in type size, color, and orientation, especially when foregrounding the wrecking ball’s “BOOM, BOOM, BOOM,” the concrete-breaking “rap, tap, tap,” and other sounds. Weizman’s two-page-spread illustrations capture the characters’ industrious pep and offer a trove of background detail, including gear-wheel-shaped cereal, a pet shop selling planes in bird cages and submarines in fish tanks, and even a masked automobile robbing a bank.
A cute and colorful tale of trucks.Pub Date: June 19, 2025
ISBN: 9781967418015
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 8, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones.
Not even the arrival of autumn can cool down this impetuous squirrel.
Although Squirrel is skeptical about Bird’s vegetable patch (“Nothing is HAPPENING!”), Bird does produce five (count them) lovely pumpkins. Squirrel picks out a favorite: “The enormous orange one.” Bird hints that Squirrel might want to help out; Squirrel sets out to fetch some work gloves and returns to find only four pumpkins. The frequently distracted Squirrel notices more gourds disappearing and leaps to the conclusion that a thief is near. And where’s Bird?! Has Squirrel’s pal also been taken? Diligently detecting, Squirrel finds clues—peck marks, footprints, and more—and produces a sketch of the suspect. As readers will guess, each clue turns out to point to one of Squirrel and Bird’s friends. Turns out Bird was delivering pumpkins to their pals while saving the big one to give to “my very best friend,” Squirrel. But why does Squirrel haul it up a tree? “So the Pumpkin Thief can’t find it, of course!” A page of pumpkin facts provides the learning component common to all titles in this series. Once more, readers will enjoy the pleasure of prediction and repetition, Squirrel’s silly persistence, Bird’s generosity, and the vibrant color illustrations, balancing orange with green.
More fun antics to satisfy returning fans and snag new ones. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781464268076
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2026
Not astonishingly go-out-and-buy-it-at-graduation inspirational, but all it takes is one seed of change to be planted.
Imagination soars—quite literally—when a little girl follows her own set of rules.
Every year Oak Hill School has a go-kart race called the Going Places contest. Students are given identical go-kart kits with a precise set of instructions. And of course, every single kart ends up exactly the same. Every one, that is, except Maya’s. Maya is a dreamy artist, and she would rather sketch birds in her backyard than get caught up in the competition. When she finally does start working, she uses the parts in the go-kart box but creates something completely different. No one ever said it had to be a go-kart. Maya’s creative thinking inspires Rafael, her neighbor (and the most enthusiastic Going Places contestant), to ask to team up. The instructions never say they couldn’t work together, either! An ode to creativity and individuality to be sure, but the Reynolds brothers are also taking a swipe at modern education: Endless repetition and following instructions without question create a culture of conformity. Hopefully now, readers will see infinite possibility every time the system hands them an identical go-kart box.
Not astonishingly go-out-and-buy-it-at-graduation inspirational, but all it takes is one seed of change to be planted. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4424-6608-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
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