by Caroline Stutson & illustrated by Katherine Tillotson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2001
A little boy and his father take the night train to visit Grandma in this rhyming story told with few words and huge, double-page-spread illustrations. Stutson (Cowpokes, 1999, etc.) provides the short, poetic text in rhyming couplets with evocative language describing sights and sounds. Her writing conveys the little boy’s excitement at his first train ride and at traveling in an unusual way at an unusual time with his daddy all to himself. Tillotson (Nice Try, Tooth Fairy, 2000, etc.) works with shades of blue, lavender, and gold to convey the gigantic size and power of the train, effectively capturing the other-worldly sense of speeding through the night while the golden lights of other places fly by. She varies her perspectives so that the reader looks at the train (and the boy inside the train) from different angles, adding to the sense of motion and the overall feeling of a long journey. The vaguely old-fashioned setting suggests the ’30s or ’40s, with tall skyscrapers and a huge train station with a vaulted ceiling. The oversized format and consistent use of double spreads make this an ideal addition to story hours with train or travel themes. (Picture book. 3-7)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7613-1598-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Laura Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 21, 2016
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Sarah Jennings
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by Tish Rabe ; illustrated by Dan Yaccarino
by Edward Miller ; illustrated by Edward Miller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 4, 2022
Smoother rides are out there.
Mommy and Bonnie—two anthropomorphic rodents—go for a joyride and notice a variety of conveyances around their busy town.
The pair encounter 22 types of vocational vehicles as they pass various sites, including a fire engine leaving a firehouse, a school bus approaching a school, and a tractor trailer delivering goods to a supermarket. Narrated in rhyming quatrains, the book describes the jobs that each wheeled machine does. The text uses simple vocabulary and sentences, with sight words aplenty. Some of the rhymes don't scan as well as others, and the description of the mail truck’s role ("A mail truck brings / letters and cards / to mailboxes / in people's yards) ignores millions of readers living in yardless dwellings. The colorful digitally illustrated spreads are crowded with animal characters of every type hustling and bustling about. Although the art is busy, observant viewers may find humor in details such as a fragile item falling out of a moving truck, a line of ducks holding up traffic, and a squirrel’s spilled ice cream. For younger children enthralled by vehicles, Sally Sutton’s Roadwork (2011) and Elizabeth Verdick’s Small Walt series provide superior text and art and kinder humor. Children who have little interest in cars, trucks, and construction equipment may find this offering a yawner. Despite being advertised as a beginner book, neither text nor art recommend this as an engaging choice for children starting to read independently. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Smoother rides are out there. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-37725-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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