These driverless vehicles aren’t quite road ready
Another series of board books about trucks hopes to find an audience in a crowded marketplace.
The premise is simple—chunky, rather generic-looking vehicles attend Whizzy Wheels Academy to learn driving skills from their instructor, Rusty, a yellow pickup truck. Like the other vehicles in the class, red tractor Tess sports a smile between her headlights. Rusty has a mustache (maybe to make him look older?). All the trucks have large eyeballs in their windshields—Tess’ are lashed—but no drivers in sight. Tess thinks she already knows everything a tractor needs to know. She wants to go “faster.” She gets stuck in the mud and must be rescued by Rusty and Lenny the loader. This turn of events comes across as more than a bit sexist since Tess is the only female in the truck fleet (or at least the only one with eyelashes). In contrast, Fergus the Fire Engine, publishing simultaneously, gets a gold star from Rusty for rescuing a man from a burning building and putting out the fire, all without help from a firefighter. With two to eight lines of text per page, complicated storylines, and blatant character-education messages, these stories are not ideally suited for very young children and should be regarded as an additional purchase at best for older children desperate for new books about trucks.
These driverless vehicles aren’t quite road ready . (Board book. 2-4)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78603-310-9
Page Count: 24
Publisher: QEB Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
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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