TWO LITTLE BOYS FROM TOOLITTLE TOYS

The Toolittle brothers (Rudy and little Ridley) test every toy at the Toolittle Toy Company, making sure each toy loves to play and having good times together on the job. When Rudy decides he must begin to “take toys seriously,” production of toy fun grinds to a halt, the brothers drift apart and Ridley must find a way to get his older brother to play with him again. Gadgets, gizmos and thingamabobs fill double-page spreads, forming great, jumbled mountains of mechanical mayhem. Children will pore over these imaginative, carefully rendered toys, while pondering (and perhaps identifying with) Ridley’s feelings of being left out and left behind. Fewer will sort out the book’s more complicated, and rather adult, theme: what it means to make work play and what happens when you turn play into work. Watercolor, graphite and colored-pencil illustrations allow for both specificity (toy gears, buttons, wheels) and softness (blurry, muted pinks, yellows, greens and blues). The boys, with their miniature business suits and cute hair parts, quickly endear themselves to readers, who will find themselves hoping earnestly that Rudy and Ridley remain playmates. (Picture book. 4-8)