Well done, Maisy! Keep up the good work.
Hop on the tractor for a busy day on the farm with the unflappable Maisy.
Along with the simultaneously publishing Maisy's Plane, this title launches the Go with Maisy board-book series. Rounded, die-cut edges make it a pleasure to touch and hold. Stylized primary-color gouache pictures are clear and bright. Cousins is a master at paring every experience down to its essential elements, leaving just enough information to hold the attention of her toddler readers. Each spread has just one declarative sentence: “She brings some hay to the barn to feed the cows.” The little white mouse cheerfully goes about her chores. When she loses a lamb, Maisy calmly retraces her trail, her tractor “chug, chugging” all the way. Of course, astute board-book readers will have noticed the lamb left behind and see that only three made it into the tractor wagon—a nicely embedded math lesson. Youngsters will quickly be chiming in with the “chug, chug” of the tractor and appropriate animals sounds. Her young readers will accept Maisy's self-congratulatory “Well done, Maisy!” as a compliment too.
Well done, Maisy! Keep up the good work. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)Pub Date: March 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7305-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A high-impact, visually exciting first book, with more power than Freight Train. Crews starts with twenties-style poster dynamics and takes off—in a bold red truck that has the word TRUCKING, in blocky white letters, extending the full height and length of the trailer. You catch a shot of the truck being loaded (with its graphically represented cargo of tricycles). You follow it. . . smack up against a lineup of directional signs, then on past other trucks, through a tunnel, and into a TRUCK STOP (as the letters on another truck there indicate)—where jazzy neon signs and arrows glare out from the night-black pages. The red truck proceeds, through diagonal rain which mutes the colors, along a crowded highway, and over a multiple overpass (no simple cloverleaf) that kids won't want to leave. The last picture, a near mirror image of the first, shows the rear door ajar ready for unloading. Throughout, Crews' slants, angles, skylines, signs, and blocks of color interact in an exhilarating demonstration of controlled energy. To call due attention here would take Crews' flashing arrows and letters as large as his TRUCKING.
Pub Date: April 21, 1980
ISBN: 0688104819
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1980
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sure to inspire calls of “READ IT AGAIN!” (Board book. 1-3)
A chunky board book with ingenious gatefolds, flaps, die-cuts, and construction trucks galore.
Like its series predecessors, this title has ample toddler appeal. Not only is its construction-site theme a passion for many children, its bold colors and thoughtful design will engage little hands and eyes as they pore over the pages. After the first two spreads show a wrecking ball smashing and crashing to open the book, two children peer out, asking, “WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” and “CAN I LOOK, TOO?” Their pages open up as side-by-side gatefolds to reveal a vast scene with “SO MANY TRUCKS! SO MANY WORKERS!” Subsequent spreads home in on individual vehicles plied by racially diverse workers and their respective roles in building up a city block. Layout includes gatefolds that open vertically up and down as well as horizontally left and right, and many pages are shaped to visually echo the vehicles and objects depicted. While such familiar fare as a bulldozer, dump truck, and a crane appear, less-common vehicles and equipment emerge as well, with some of the more dramatic gatefolds and die-cuts revealing a tunnel borer, a massive bridge builder that spans valleys, and sky cranes hovering above like superpowered helicopters. The book culminates as workers take a lunch break and then throw themselves back into work to “BUILD, BUILD, BUILD ALL OVER TOWN!”
Sure to inspire calls of “READ IT AGAIN!” (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2569-2
Page Count: 90
Publisher: Abrams Appleseed
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
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