THE BIG TRIP

Immigrant author/illustrator Gorbachev knows what it takes to make a big trip, having come to this country years ago and continued his successful children’s-book career. He reprises his Pig and Goat characters from Where Is the Apple Pie? (1999) and One Rainy Day (2001) to explore the happy anticipation versus the anxious apprehension one can experience in planning a trip. Pig blithely selects modes of transportation while Goat furthers his own agenda with reasons why one mode is worse than the other. Take a bike? You could fall off. Drive a car? It could break down. What’s the solution? It amicably brings together the irrepressible force with the irresistible speed bump: “go with a friend.” Gorbachev is up to speed portraying the emotions spent riding each new leg of the journey. Pen, ink, and watercolor capture the imagination and the reality of the intrepid travelers. Just watch out for pirates. (Picture book. 3-5)