Put pedal to the metal and read this as fast as wheels will allow.
At last, an answer to that long-standing question: would you trust a T. rex in the driver’s seat?
Bespectacled, bescarved Rex is all too happy to show his staid and steady pal Stego all the noises his sporty roadster makes. His favorite? The honk. Alas, honking is explicitly forbidden according to copious signage and Stego’s unwavering commitment to the rules. Yet when a fire truck must make way, Rex at last lets loose with a torrent of emergency-excused honks. Lesson learned? Not even slightly. It’s fabulous to see a character with glasses depicted as the one with the impulse-control issues in a book. Rex’s charm and Stego’s worrywart concerns battle it out for dominion in the hearts of child readers. The aptly named Ferrari’s watercolors neatly capture both Rex’s joie de vivre and the madcap energy of the city. (Readers may wonder at the ease with which Stego’s plates are accommodated when he sits down, however.) The rhyming text’s scansion also works consistently, and the simple wordplay allows this to double as both a read-aloud and a text for emerging readers. A sudden right-hand turn into metafictive territory prevents the book from nailing the landing, but it’s hard to resist the sheer exuberant id of the hero and his superego stand-in best friend.
Put pedal to the metal and read this as fast as wheels will allow. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3672-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
A charmingly loud and lighthearted friendship story.
A freckle-faced white child with a mass of red curls piled three times the height of her head is flying her kite near a snowcapped mountaintop when—“snap!”—the string breaks, and the toy is blown into a sleeping bear’s cave, coming to rest on his belly.
Readers are cued into the nonscary absurdity as they observe the orange-furred bear napping in a Froggy Hollow Summer Camp T-shirt stretched across his huge belly, a tiny teddy bear tucked in his arm. As the girl reaches for her kite, the bear rolls over, crushing it: “crunch!” The girl is shocked into a fit of righteous anger, blaming the bear for breaking her toy. “HORRIBLE BEAR!”—and so begins the refrain of her angry tantrum. The team that brought readers the adorable Wolfie the Bunny (2014) continues their success here. OHora’s paintings are boldly colored and layered: a yellow stuffed bunny wears a teal jacket; the purple-and-black–clad little girl strides in red Converse high-top sneakers over a pea-green lawn. The limited language and solid acrylic paintings work together beautifully to convey emotion. When the little girl realizes that the bear didn’t break her toy on purpose, one word speaks volumes: “Oh.” Her face fills the entire page, her feelings indicated with black dot eyes, a couple of curved lines, and a black dot mouth.
A charmingly loud and lighthearted friendship story. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-28283-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
A contemplative exploration, with illustrations that carry readers past puzzlement.
Happiness offsets harder feelings.
A child with brown skin and puffy brown hair lies asleep. “The slowness of two eyes opening,” reads the text; eyes open, the child rises in cheerful daylight to greetings from two dogs and “the happiness of a new day.” Handy’s exploration of emotions that proceed into happiness is a grab bag. It’s nonlinear (can be opened anywhere); the multiracial cast of characters hold no especial connections with each other; and the prehappiness modes vary between moods and situations. “The fear of leaping. / The happiness of having leapt”—feet on a diving board, then a child excitedly suspended midair above the pool—juxtaposes negative and positive feelings in a fairly traditional manner. Readers will thrill to a spread about peeing and another about the critical difference between hearing no and saying no. However, stillness, distance, and self-sufficiency are pretty neutral; when a bird experiences “The stillness of a perch. / The happiness of flight,” the stillness doesn’t seem inferior, creating a question—what do these juxtapositions mean? Enter Yum’s watercolor-and–colored-pencil illustrations, airy and light, with soft pencil shadings everywhere for comfort. “The self-sufficiency of a cat in the morning. / The happiness of a cat in the afternoon” is mystifying as a pairing of opposites, but Yum’s pale sunlight and cooling shadows—first on a windowsill, then spilling over the blissful cat on the floor—override any conceptual confusion with beauty.
A contemplative exploration, with illustrations that carry readers past puzzlement. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59270-351-7
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
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