Whatever it is, tugboats have it, some mojo that gives them an aura of joyfulness. Kirk’s tug is a good example of the breed. As the boat goes about its busyness, it gradually grows a big smile on its bow. “Scoot! Scoot! Toot! Toot!” Lewis’s text is simple and lively, the kind one could just as easily sing as read out loud, and it’s full of punchy rhymes: “Tugga-tugga tugboat. Bounce and bob and float, boat.” Crayon-bright colors spread sunshine all over the double-page spreads as the tugboat chugs along beside a giant tanker, sea gulls flying overhead. But somewhere there’s a slight shift in perspective, and little hints dropped in the illustrations—What are those big bars of soap doing on the wharf? What about the rubber ducky?—suggest that maybe this tugboat’s harbor is a bathtub. And sure enough, “Day is over. Moon shines bright.” It must be bedtime. A perfect ending to a perfect voyage. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7868-5615-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
Yuletide fun for the youngest ones.
A familiar children’s song gets a Christmas-carol reboot.
A title-page map highlights various locations in a North Pole village, including Santa’s house and a toy workshop. The ensuing pages, however, focus less on locale than they do on the passengers on a Christmassy bus driven by St. Nick himself. “Let’s ride the bus on Christmas Eve, / Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve. / Let’s ride the bus on Christmas Eve— / who will we find inside?” Each verse features a different group of passengers with accompanying illustrations showing them riding this bus. First elves (pleasingly depicted with a range of racial presentations) go “Let’s make toys!” then reindeer go “Jingle! Jingle! Jingle!” snowmen go “Brr! Brr! Brr!” and so on. (In a particularly silly touch, sentient cookies with tiny arms and legs go, “Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!”) The busy, serviceable cartoon scenes don’t show riders getting on and off, and the bus’s interior seems magically cavernous as compared to illustrations of its exterior. The book concludes with a magical scene of the bus taking flight, the reindeer no longer passengers but harnessed to its front bumper and pulling it upward through the stars. Where are they going? “NEXT STOP: YOUR HOUSE!” reads knockout type against the dark blue sky.
Yuletide fun for the youngest ones. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-17485-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Preschoolers enamored with construction equipment will enjoy this cheerful tale, which is simple enough for little ones just...
Four animals with heavy construction equipment arrive to build a treehouse as a surprise for a Dalmatian puppy.
The puppy awakens to loud, unexpected sounds and a foreshadowing glimpse of a big, metal scoop outside the bedroom window. The puppy joyously discovers an adult Dalmatian driving an excavator, called a “digger” in this British author/illustrator’s text. Just a couple of brief sentences describe the action of the digger, punctuated with creative sound effects incorporated into the illustrations in collage-effect letters. Another set of loud sounds precedes the arrival of a camel in a crane, followed by a duck in a dump truck, and a bear in a bulldozer. Each new piece of equipment has its own set of exuberant sounds that relate loosely to the machine’s function, such as “DUMP, SPLAT, CRASH” for the dump truck. The patterned text uses the machines’ sounds as a predictive device, with a dramatic page turn to reveal the next animal and corresponding construction equipment. Bold, movement-filled illustrations create a buoyant atmosphere, with jaunty animal characters and bright flowers and trees surrounding the construction site. There’s a bit of a logic gap between the heavy equipment and the concluding treehouse, as there are no carpenters shown building the actual house. Another small drawback is the gender bias in the four animal equipment drivers, as only one is identified as female; the puppy’s gender is not specified.
Preschoolers enamored with construction equipment will enjoy this cheerful tale, which is simple enough for little ones just transitioning into real stories. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62370-802-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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