A charming book that evokes the best of a community and celebrates one special letter carrier named Curtis. Curtis has delivered the mail to the people in this neighborhood for 42 years, and the book opens on his last day of service. As he makes his rounds, readers see just how much everyone will miss him, from the butcher to the crossing guard to the baby in 4-C. They also see the changes that have taken place over the years: Trees have grown larger, children Curtis knew have become parents and even grandparents, people have moved in and out. Curtis never changes. On his last day all the mailboxes hold thank-you gifts for him, and a surprise party awaits him at the last house on the route. Words and art perform an affectionate duet; Henkes (Protecting Marie, p. 469, etc.) provides a text as reassuring as Curtis's daily visits while Russo (I Don't Want to Go Back to School, 1994, etc.) creates both full-page folk art and small decorations to punctuate some passages. Pair this with Cynthia Rylant's Mr. Griggs' Work (1989) for another fond look at one person's impact on a community. (Picture book. 3+)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-688-12827-0
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Safe to creep on by.
Carle’s famous caterpillar expresses its love.
In three sentences that stretch out over most of the book’s 32 pages, the (here, at least) not-so-ravenous larva first describes the object of its love, then describes how that loved one makes it feel before concluding, “That’s why… / I[heart]U.” There is little original in either visual or textual content, much of it mined from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. “You are… / …so sweet,” proclaims the caterpillar as it crawls through the hole it’s munched in a strawberry; “…the cherry on my cake,” it says as it perches on the familiar square of chocolate cake; “…the apple of my eye,” it announces as it emerges from an apple. Images familiar from other works join the smiling sun that shone down on the caterpillar as it delivers assurances that “you make… / …the sun shine brighter / …the stars sparkle,” and so on. The book is small, only 7 inches high and 5 ¾ inches across when closed—probably not coincidentally about the size of a greeting card. While generations of children have grown up with the ravenous caterpillar, this collection of Carle imagery and platitudinous sentiment has little of his classic’s charm. The melding of Carle’s caterpillar with Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE on the book’s cover, alas, draws further attention to its derivative nature.
Safe to creep on by. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-448-48932-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
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