A spellbinding love letter to rural America—and a reminder to look more closely at the world around us.
A rural family takes part in a nightly ritual.
As the sky darkens, the family tinkers with a rusty old car. After securing the titular couch to the car’s roof, they drive over “the gravelly roads… / up in the mountains, down by the hollow,” to a field of old abandoned vehicles. With a little love and magic, their car takes flight over the open space, where they’re bathed in the light of “a moon that is wondrous, / that will never break” and gaze at the fog, “which hugs the mountain like cozy bedsheets.” After their nightly trek is complete, they return to their humble abode filled with love. Inspired by nightly drives with her family in Appalachian Ohio, Hoefler tenderly pays tribute to an area whose inhabitants are often misunderstood or looked down upon. Using a “House That Jack Built” format, she finds beauty in things many would overlook, like “the field with the school bus surrounded by sheep.” Quotidian details mingle with the strange and surreal, with captivating results. With a shimmering, impressionistic flair, Seiferling’s digital illustrations add texture to the deep blues and blacks of the nocturnal setting. Author’s and illustrator’s notes further emphasize the importance of finding meaning in the simple and everyday. Most of the family members are tan-skinned and present East Asian; one child is darker-skinned.
A spellbinding love letter to rural America—and a reminder to look more closely at the world around us. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780823456758
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
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