Freymann’s parade of inventively carved and combined fruits and veggies rolls on, this time demonstrating modes of travel. He starts with feet (actually mushroom stems) of course, and continues through skates and scooters, a wheelchair, skis, automobiles, a fire truck, a passenger train with cucumber cars, boats, planes and finally a carrot/rocket orbiting an unaltered cantaloupe that, just as it is, looks remarkably moonlike. Wheels are slices of jalapeño or radish; a sea of cabbage floats boats made of pea pods, scooped out banana peels and a watermelon steamer. Who won’t smile at the banana airplane, squash blimp or romaine-leaf sail? Accompanied by a bouncy rhyme—“By foot, on wheels, by air or sea, / I hope that soon you’ll visit me!”—these vehicles and their delightfully lifelike passengers will inspire laughter and admiration in equal measure. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-439-11019-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Levine/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2006
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches...
Listeners will quickly take up the percussive chorus—“Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the Trashy town! Is the trash truck full yet? NO”—as they follow burly Mr. Gilly, the garbage collector, on his rounds from park to pizza parlor and beyond.
Flinging cans and baskets around with ease, Mr. Gilly dances happily through streetscapes depicted with loud colors and large, blocky shapes; after a climactic visit to the dump, he roars home for a sudsy bath.
Part of a spate of books intent on bringing the garbage collectors in children’s lives a little closer, this almost matches Eve Merriam’s Bam Bam Bam (1995), also illustrated by Yaccarino, for sheer verbal and visual volume. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-027139-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
With a tiger at the wheel, the big purple bus rolls all over town, picking up a menagerie of passengers from sheep (“BAAAH, BAAAH, BAAAH”) to vipers—get it? — (“HISS, HISS, HISS”) to skunks (“SSSS, SSSS, SSSS”) before disgorging its dismayed human riders (“HELP! HELP! HELP!”) at an outdoor party. Though wild creatures waddle, tramp, or slither aboard by troops there's always room for more in Karas’s (Raising Sweetness, 1999, etc.) gleeful paint-and-paper collage scenes. The scene on the bus is bound to provoke a great reaction and reading (or honking) along is inevitable. It's a frolicsome spin on the familiar play rhyme, and a surefire alternative or follow-up to Maryann Kovalski's Wheels on the Bus (1987) or Paul Zelinsky's classic popup version (1990). Hop onboard. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8050-5952-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2000
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