Both an excellent book for guided reading and a winning read-aloud.
Ty loves adventure, but he is having a little trouble finding someone to join him.
Ty, a little black boy, wants to play, but everyone in the house is too busy to take time for him. After being turned down by his dad, mom, and big brother, Corey, Ty wanders downstairs to the family room, where he finds an empty cardboard box. He and his puppy inspect the box, draw some wheels onto it, and make a locomotive that rumbles and whistles down an imaginary track. Ty steers his train past farmland and a city and through a tunnel, picking up familiar and eager passengers along the way. This My First I Can Read book will engage young beginning readers. They will relate to Ty’s playfulness, sense of adventure, and energetic imagination. Readers will also enjoy the vivid and playful illustrations that take them from Ty’s home and into the world he imagines. Repeated onomatopoeic phrases build anticipation: “Woo-woo,” “Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga,” and “Clickety-clack.” These are framed around the pickup of each passenger, helping to control pacing while giving readers an opportunity for fun. Mata renders the imaginary scenes in a childlike crayon that blends nicely with the warm visions of this black family’s middle-class home.
Both an excellent book for guided reading and a winning read-aloud. (Early reader. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-295107-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Required reading for both plane-iacs and any first-time flier.
For young fans of things with wings, another oversized visual riot from the creator of Everything Goes: On Land (2011).
Following a departing family as it wends its way through a teeming airport, Biggs doesn’t just confine himself to winged aircraft—covering instead the entire history of flight from the Wright Brothers on. Topical spreads are filled edge to edge with early airplanes, modern working planes of various designs, helicopters, gliders, blimps and balloons. Knowing just how much visual busyness to pack into each bright cartoon scene without turning it into a confusing jumble, he also offers alternate spreads a-bustle with activity. Passengers wheel luggage through a concourse, undress to various degrees at a security station (“NOPE” flashes the red sign over the gate as a peg-legged pirate tries to pass), board a jetliner (later seen in a cutaway view) and taxi out to the runway for a climactic double-gatefold takeoff. Along with identifying labels, viewers inclined to take closer looks will be rewarded by the sight of five rug rats leading a harried mom on a merry chase, birds with or without jaunty hats, at least one personal cameo of the artist and other diversions.
Required reading for both plane-iacs and any first-time flier. (Informational picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-195810-6
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
An early-reader book to build on.
An accessible, rhyming text drives this story-with-a-twist about a construction site, inviting new readers to hone their emerging skills.
Initial spreads depict a variety of vehicles engaged in digging, scooping, lifting and so on, detailing the activities of a construction site. Varied visual perspectives in the art draw the eyes to the different machines, but they can be disorienting—particularly in the worm’s-eye view on the spread reading “Digger’s teeth bite the ground,” which does not show the “[t]racks skid[ding] around” as indicated by the text. On the other hand, while some readers may wonder why the vehicles’ operators are not seen in the art, this omission is satisfyingly resolved in a long-shot spread that depicts a group of children playing with toy trucks in a sand pile. The vehicles are clearly miniversions of those from prior pages, and it’s refreshing to see both boys and girls and at least one child of color included in the group “working like a team.” From here, the narrative draws the children’s play to a conclusion by book’s end, providing readers with a fictive parallel to their own accomplishments in finishing the book: “Good work, crew!”
An early-reader book to build on. (Early reader. 4-6)Pub Date: June 25, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-375-96910-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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