What is it about jazz and children’s books? It’s a long way from Raffi to Dizzy, but there’ll always be another book seeking to bridge the gap. Unfortunately, most of them, by sticking with the tried-and-true idiom of picture-bookspeak, fall far short, and this is no exception. Here, a train travels from New York to New Orleans, picking up musicians—a sax player here, a drummer there—until one smokin’ combo rocks the tracks. Johnson and Fancher have done a splendid job, deviating from their customary muralistic style to create collage paintings that mimic hand-tinted black-and-white photographs. These paintings are cut and layered, the sudden sharp edges and abruptly varied perspectives evoking the syncopated urban rhythms of jazz. The text, however, mostly sticks to the omnipresent, distinctly un-jazzy rhyming couplet. Ho hum. Onomatopoetic jazz sounds (“blee blee, doot doot”) rendered in a multitude of typefaces attempt to relieve the monotony of the old standard, but in the end, the train comes off the track, the jazz beat overwhelmed by the lockstep verse scheme. Enjoy the art, but get out a copy of Mysterious Thelonious or Charlie Parker Played Bebop for the real deal. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-057190-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2005
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
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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