This convoy is sure to please the toddler set and beyond.
Readers can explore the cargoes of five different trucks by lifting 30-plus flaps.
With each truck depicted in profile across a double-page spread, little fingers can open the passenger-side door and several other moderately sturdy flaps to reveal the appropriate freight inside a dairy/produce truck, a carnival truck, a car carrier and more. A couple of simple sentences set the scene on the far left of the spread, and the driver asks readers to locate items of note hidden within the truck. (Alas, the sole obviously female driver asks readers to help her find her pink purse, stowed beneath her seat. So much for women’s lib.) From the friendly critters on their way to the petting zoo to the marine animals revealed in the aquarium-transport vehicle, what’s under the flaps is playfully engaging. Bleck’s cartoons, in carnival-bright colors, are simple enough to allow for recognition by the youngest readers and offer enough detail to draw in older preschoolers. A few of the spreads address different concepts (such as counting, colors, etc.), but the “orange lion” on the carnival truck’s merry-go-round is yellow as much as orange.
This convoy is sure to please the toddler set and beyond. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-545-53525-0
Page Count: 10
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
A Christmas train book that gets derailed by a lacking story arc.
Not quite the Polar Express….
Sobel’s rhyming text fails to deliver a clear premise for the eponymous goodnight train’s Christmas Eve progress through the pages, and Huliska-Beith’s acrylic paintings embellished with fabric and paper collage don’t clarify the storytelling. At the start of the picture book, a bevy of anthropomorphic animals decorates a rather rickety-looking engine, and then human children gather around and pile into train cars that look like beds and cribs. The train follows a track, seemingly in pursuit of Santa’s sleigh, but to what end isn’t clear. They travel “through a town of gingerbread” and through the woods to find the sleigh blocking the tracks and the reindeer snoozing while, mystifyingly, Santa counts some sheep. Perching the sleigh on the train’s cowcatcher, they all proceed to the North Pole, where the “elves all cheer. / Santa’s here until next year!” But then the goodnight train just…leaves, “heading home on Christmas Eve.” Was this a dream? It definitely wasn’t a story with a satisfying beginning, middle, and end. Santa’s face is never seen; the human children and elves are diverse.
A Christmas train book that gets derailed by a lacking story arc. (Picture book. 2-4)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-328-61840-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Truck lovers of any gender will find this title a treat, but the hyperfeminine companion is sadly restrictive.
Richly textured board pages and a limited color palette distinguish this tribute to trucks.
The gray buckram cover is a delight to hold, while bright red endpapers promise excitement within. Beautifully designed using shades of red, black, white, and brown on matte pages, the whole package has a retro, letterpress feel. The first truck is a firetruck big enough for a brown-skinned child to straddle. Later pages feature construction vehicles, a flatbed trailer, and an ice cream truck. The slight text has a lyrical quality, though the occasional rhymes seem accidental. Relatively abstract concepts are casually introduced, “Love is a kid who lines them all up. Biggest to smallest, color by color.” On the final page the brown-skinned child is kissed goodnight while clutching a truck under a road-patterned blanket. The main character wears plaid bib overalls and has longish curly hair. Another child, also brown-skinned, with close-cropped hair, plays with the construction trucks, shares a treat from the ice cream truck, and offers a goodnight kiss. Unfortunately, a less gender-neutral companion volume, Love Is a Tutu, clearly aims for the ballerina market with an excess of pink. Together the two books assure little girls they can love both tutus and trucks. Unfortunately, they send a mixed message to little boys.
Truck lovers of any gender will find this title a treat, but the hyperfeminine companion is sadly restrictive. (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-937359-86-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Cameron + Company
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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