Following in the path of Fire Truck (1998), S°s transports young listeners to a realm they love, the world of trucks. Matt’s mother asks him to put his trucks away. He does so, accompanied by gerunds on every truck’s talent: digging, plowing, pushing, rolling. With each turn of the page, the text—running sideways up the right margin of the spread—and the trucks get a little larger. Soon, the text is fairly barking, while Matt manfully works the vehicles—he has become their size or they have become his. Toward the end of the book, in a gate-fold illustration, Matt is seated in an enormous crane, hoisting one of his socks; on the next page, his room is tidy, the toy trucks are stowed, and restored to their size, just as Matt is restored to his. As a last, obliging touch, the action moves outside, where Matt and his mother are off on an errand; their neighborhood is a hotbed of truck action. The world that S°s creates is wonderfully inviting, not least as a result of his artwork, with their simple, expressive lines and minimal use of color. (Picture book. 2-5)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-16276-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
PLB 0-688-15996-6 The familiar plight of the smallest is the subject of this picture book from Keller (Brave Horace, 1998, etc.), featuring a baby bear, who is smaller than his mother, father, and siblings. Jacob is frustrated when he can’t reach the cookie jar, see himself in the mirror, or climb to the top of the jungle gym. Papa and Mama tell him he must wait to grow bigger, but Jacob hates waiting. Paint marks on a tree replace the traditional notches in a door frame to mark Jacob’s height. No matter how many vegetables he eats, he doesn’t grow; when the snows come, his mark is buried in a drift. After the snow melts, the reassuring ending finds Jacob grown, not only in stature but in maturity. The apple-cheeked characters are round and cuddly, while the homey, pen-and-watercolor scenes are ever-affable. At their center, the demonstrative Jacob is an everychild, learning to find joy in small measures. (Picture book. 3-5)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-15995-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
Three different settings for a child’s morning are covered in this book from Whitman (The Night Is Like an Animal, 1995, etc.). “The sun is coming up. It’s a brand-new day on the farm,” where children awaken to the rooster’s crow and begin their chores—gathering eggs, feeding animals. In the town, “way down the road,” parents wake by an alarm clock, and children rush to get ready for the school bus. In the city, a babysitter arrives to take over as the mother heads for work; the child then goes to the park. Readers are asked, “What do you do in the morning?” Diverse family configurations are shown in watercolor paintings; these were created, it appears, through a wet-on-wet technique that makes the boundaries of objects indistinct, as if they are glimpsed through gauze. The luminous scenes make the author’s point: there are many ways to start the day, no matter where morning arrives. (Picture book. 2-4)
Pub Date: April 12, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-35527-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
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