The jacket drawing of a little girl clinging to her grandfather's shoulders conveys a joyous, adventuresome sharing—but leaves in doubt just what sort of vehicle (a horse-drawn cart, perhaps) they're breezing along in. And the contents—a different shared experience at each opening—are more ambiguous still: deliberately oblique, and inferential. Mostly the pit an adult's matter-of-factness against a child's imaginings. The two are in a greenhouse, where we are supposed to gather from the pictures that Granpa is transplanting seedlings from flats into pots. In Roman type (implicitly, Granpa): "There will not be room for all the little seeds to grow." In italics (implicitly, the little girl): "Do worms go to heaven?" To an adult ear, that may sound a cute non sequitur; most children are apt to take it as simple woolly-headedness. Another scene, one of the simpler to explain, has the pair looking out of the house in a rainstorm: "Noah knew the ark was not far from land when he saw the dove carrying the olive branch," says Granpa; "Could we float away in this house, Granpa?" says the little girl. Then, overleaf, he's saying—with no connection whatever: "That was not a nice thinS to say to Granpa." And at the last we have a mini-sequence, totally unforeshadowed, in which Granpa sits in his chair, sick; takes the little girl on his lap; and vanishes, presumed dead (!), as we see her silently gazing at his empty chair. There are ways to make scattered moments, and tenuous feelings, add up—but only in the pictures does the relationship register here.
Pub Date: March 1, 1985
ISBN: 0099434083
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1985
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share.
In this latest in the series, Little Blue Truck, driven by pal Toad, is challenged to a countryside race by Racer Red, a sleek, low-slung vehicle.
Blue agrees, and the race is on. Although the two start off “hood to hood / and wheel to wheel,” they switch positions often as they speed their way over dusty country roads. Blue’s farm friends follow along to share in the excitement and shout out encouragement; adult readers will have fun voicing the various animal sounds. Short rhyming verses on each page and several strategic page turns add drama to the narrative, but soft, mottled effects in the otherwise colorful illustrations keep the competition from becoming too intense. Racer Red crosses the finish line first, but Blue is a gracious loser, happy to have worked hard. That’s a new concept for Racer Red, who’s laser-focused on victory but takes Blue’s words (“win or lose, it’s fun to try!”) to heart—a revelation that may lead to worthwhile storytime discussions. When Blue’s farm animal friends hop into the truck for the ride home, Racer Red tags along and learns a second lesson, one about speed. “Fast is fun, / and slow is too, / as long as you’re / with friends.”
A friendship tale with solid messaging and plenty of fun sounds to share. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780063387843
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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