A pleaser for fans of big rigs and disaster scenarios alike.
An international gallery of air, sea, and land firefighting and rescue vehicles, with hinged flaps offering peeks inside each.
Drawn with Biesty’s trademark attention to fine detail and printed on stiff cardboard, the eight featured vehicles include an Australian police car festooned with cameras and other high-tech gear, a NATO submarine rescue pod, a big New York City fireboat, and a British Tamar-class motorized lifeboat. Explanatory labels and small views of the vehicle in action or of other makes with similar jobs surround the large central image. Though the artist apparently can’t resist adding an occasional cutaway view, the flaps are designed to be almost invisible at first glance so that viewers can get a sense of what each vehicle actually looks like before they start delving into insides and distinctive gear. The labeling is sometimes perfunctory—the contents of a helicopter ambulance’s baggage compartment are generically dubbed “Emergency equipment,” and a ground-based ambulance features “privacy windows,” whatever that means—but overall the text adds informative notes about specialized features, life-saving capabilities, power plants, top speeds, and other performance data.
A pleaser for fans of big rigs and disaster scenarios alike. (Informational novelty. 5-7)Pub Date: June 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7959-0
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Templar/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
An inviting, accessible title for new readers.
Garland’s little red car invites children along for a ride to reading success.
Opening endpapers show an aerial view of a Levittown-like setting with a single driveway occupied by a car. The title page zooms in on this home, with the car facing the reader, its headlights like eyes and its fender a subtle smile. That expression is amplified in the closer view on the first page of the book proper, with the simple text “Car looks good.” But when the car ventures out to “go far,” it ends up becoming quite a mess after mud, smoke, and birds sully its shiny, red body. “Car does not look good now,” reads the controlled text. “Car is sad.” Happily, Car is also resourceful and heads off to a carwash. Simple lines—“Car gets wet. Splash, splash. / Car gets suds. // Car gets a rub. Mmmmmmm”—see it getting clean again. Closing endpapers picture the car driving back through the suburban neighborhood again, its bright yellow headlights echoing the lights in the houses. Digital illustrations may make some children think of Pixar’s Cars films, particularly in scenes where Car’s facial expressions are strongest and most humorous—as when the birds make their mess.
An inviting, accessible title for new readers. (Early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2598-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
A picture-book favorite despite minor flaws? That’s a 10-4, good buddy.
In McCanna and Frawley’s cheery picture-book debut, miniscule vehicles drive into supersized action.
Accompanied by a bouncy rhyme, several brightly colored trucks rumble through the garden: the lead red-and-blue truck, the more feminine purple truck and the gridlock-loathing aqua truck. Though the color palette and cartoon appearance of the nameless vehicles may seem like a carbon copy of Disney’s Cars (2006), illustrator Frawley has included humorous details for each truck, giving them life beyond their big-screen predecessors. For instance, the red-and-blue truck has jaunty eyebrows created from roof lights, the purple truck’s short bursts of steam look like daisies, and the aqua truck’s expressive eyebrows are actually wiper blades. The illustrations help tell a hilarious story, most notably of a traffic jam featuring a frog, slug and worm who are clearly not amused by the crowded garden path. McCanna similarly handles the text well. The rhythmic pattern is clear, most of the rhyme is spot-on—“Teeny tiny tires. With teeny tiny treads. / Leaving teeny tiny trails between the flower beds”—and the story begs to be read aloud to a group. Typical trucker talk is included in the dialogue—“Breaker breaker, Buddy!” “What’s your twenty, Friend?”—and the lingo is explained in a short glossary at the end of the story. Though the premise is amusing, the proportion of the trucks in relation to their surroundings can be a bit inconsistent. Most images depict the trucks, which are “smaller than a dime,” as being only marginally bigger than ants and bees, yet other images portray the trucks as being much larger—almost half as long as a box of animal crackers. Nevertheless, this delightful story will charm truck-loving children.
A picture-book favorite despite minor flaws? That’s a 10-4, good buddy.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989668811
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Little Bahalia Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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