bookshelf

MAISY GOES TO LONDON

Name: MAISY GOES TO LONDON
Author: Lucy Cousins
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8399-3

by Lucy Cousins ; illustrated by Lucy Cousins ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2016

As a visit with Maisy goes, it’s a typically colorful day, but readers should be aware they’ll have to mind the gaps

bookshelf

Maisy the mouse and her pals visit London.

They ride a double-decker bus, admire the lights in Piccadilly Circus, pose on a stone lion in Trafalgar Square, pass Buckingham Palace, walk along the Thames, stop in at the Tower of London, take a ride on the Underground, and more. At each stop, shutterbug Maisy takes a picture, and her captioned photographs appear on the rear endpapers. (Except for the one of all the friends together taken by a kind penguin bobby, every single snapshot is endearingly off-kilter.) In this whirlwind tour of London, Cousins makes a few odd choices. While all the sights the friends visit are standard tourist destinations, it’s a little peculiar that in this book for toddlers and preschoolers the protagonists hang out in the National Gallery rather than take a spin on the London Eye, for instance. Though the latter attraction is depicted in one scene, the emphasis is on culture and education rather than strict entertainment. Tots introduced to London through this book as preparation for a family visit will recognize the ravens and the Beefeaters but will be unprepared for the blood-soaked history of the Tower of London said Beefeaters cheerily unfold.

As a visit with Maisy goes, it’s a typically colorful day, but readers should be aware they’ll have to mind the gaps . (Picture book. 2-5)

Pub Date: March 8, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-7636-8399-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

- BOOK REVIEW
GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS AND OTHER STORIES
by Lucy Cousins ; illustrated by Lucy Cousins

- BOOK REVIEW
MAISY GOES ON A NATURE WALK
by Lucy Cousins ; illustrated by Lucy Cousins

- BOOK REVIEW
A GOOD PLACE
by Lucy Cousins ; illustrated by Lucy Cousins

bookshelf

THE WHEELS ON THE BUS AT CHRISTMAS

illustrated by Sarah Kieley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 22, 2020

Yuletide fun for the youngest ones.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS | CHILDREN'S POETRY | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION

bookshelf

DALMATIAN IN A DIGGER

by Rebecca Elliott ; illustrated by Rebecca Elliott ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2017

Preschoolers enamored with construction equipment will enjoy this cheerful tale, which is simple enough for little ones just...

bookshelf

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)