by Robert Burleigh ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999
Pajama-clad Ben draws a train and steps on board, beginning a ride that takes him “Past green hills/Where horses browse,/An old farm house./A field of cows./And a whir and a whistle,/That seem to be saying,/To go anywhere/Is better than staying.” Painting in a realistic style, Yardley constructs playscapes in which toys and full-size animals or landforms mix, while train and track shift back and forth between solid reality and a simple crayon drawing. Plunging into a subway tunnel, the train stops at last at a station called “In-My-Bed,” so that Ben can crawl beneath the covers and “dream train dreams/Till morning comes.” Other children have taken similar journeys in many books, but the art provides an unusually clear evocation of the way imagination, anchored in reality, can bring the whole world right into the bedroom. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30106-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
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by Robert Burleigh ; illustrated by Wendell Minor
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by Daniel Kirk & illustrated by Daniel Kirk ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996
Stiff and stylized in the polished deco-style paintings, Angelo looks like a mannequin as he goes about pumping gas at Lucky's all-night garage, circa 1939. As his shift progresses, Angelo serves a foxy lady biker who outlines her mouth ``with the brightest red lipstick Angelo has ever seen,'' an opera-singing Italian papa and his five children, and a bus full of cranky musicians. A bride and groom in a leaky convertible sit out a sudden storm (``some honeymoon''), and a fashionable drunk in ``top hat and tails as rumpled/as an unmade bed'' mooches a nickel for the candy machine. The jazzy design and bold, shiny artwork command more attention than the story; the string of unrelated incidents will recall old movies and other sources of nostalgia for adults but may not satisfy young children. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-7868-0200-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
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by Daniel Kirk ; illustrated by Daniel Kirk
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by Allan Drummond & illustrated by Allan Drummond ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 23, 2001
Casey Jones, the King of the Iron Horse when the railroads ruled the land, gets polished to a hero's gleam in Drummond's rhymed telling of the stormy night he died. It was a hundred years ago that Casey pulled into the station aboard his Illinois 638, there to get the message from the company to point his train south to Memphis. As the train gets fired up to move through the wild, rain-lashed night, Drummond gives readers a vest-pocket history on the importance of the railroad in binding the nation together (and not incidentally in destroying the Native American way of life; be prepared to do some explaining to young readers here). Once out of town, Casey opens her up: "The train was full of people / from all down the line— / mothers and children / all asleep at the time— / and the milk and the mailbags / from all over the state, / and everyone knew they were / running late." Don't stop to quibble that Casey is being reckless by flying through the dark—“Casey Jones, / he'd never been late"—just be thankful that when he finally sees the flagman alerting him to a stalled freight train around the bend, he manages to save everybody aboard, except himself. You can hear the banjos pickin' in the background to Drummond's verse, which keeps the rhythm of the well-known folk song. His line-and-wash artwork is a transporting thing of beauty, mixing pages of multiple vignettes with double-paged spreads. Sometimes the text is handwritten; sometimes it's typed in the clouds. The variety adds to the bustle. An author's note explaining what little is known of the real Casey rounds out the book. "Wooo . . . oooh!" (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 23, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-31175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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