This intergenerational romp filled with sight gags and puns will keep readers humming as they pore over each detail-packed...
A flower-power VW bus races cross-country along crowded dirt lanes and city freeways to the tune of “This Old Man.”
A chaotic counting adventure ensues as the van and its precariously attached luggage rack motors along past construction vehicles, trains, tractors, and anything else on wheels: “This old van, she passed ONE, / shining in the rising sun. / With a click clack rattle rack, / ready for some fun, / this old van says, / ‘GOOD-BYE, ONE!’ ” Conahan’s soft pastel palette and comically inventive, Peter Max–inspired illustrations—from the grinning, wide-eyed bulldozers to the hard-hat–wearing mountain goats—are reminiscent of the Saturday-morning-cartoons of the 1960s. The peace-sign–waving, green-shaded–, tie-dye–, and bell-bottom–sporting grandparents who own the titular van leave their home on Hippie Way in Groovytown to keep a date with their grandson Jake for his derby meet. Challenged by flat tires and flying dirt clods, the happy-go-lucky, aging flower children don’t let anything keep them down for long. With the pedal to the metal, Gramps at last cajoles (with Granny and the dog pushing from behind) the aging van over one last hill to the finish line.
This intergenerational romp filled with sight gags and puns will keep readers humming as they pore over each detail-packed page. (Picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4549-1063-3
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Sadly, the storytelling runs aground.
A little red sleigh has big Christmas dreams.
Although the detailed, full-color art doesn’t anthropomorphize the protagonist (which readers will likely identify as a sled and not a sleigh), a close third-person text affords the object thoughts and feelings while assigning feminine pronouns. “She longed to become Santa’s big red sleigh,” reads an early line establishing the sleigh’s motivation to leave her Christmas-shop home for the North Pole. Other toys discourage her, but she perseveres despite creeping self-doubt. A train and truck help the sleigh along, and when she wishes she were big, fast, and powerful like them, they offer encouragement and counsel patience. When a storm descends after the sleigh strikes out on her own, an unnamed girl playing in the snow brings her to a group of children who all take turns riding the sleigh down a hill. When the girl brings her home, the sleigh is crestfallen she didn’t reach the North Pole. A convoluted happily-ever-after ending shows a note from Santa that thanks the sleigh for giving children joy and invites her to the North Pole next year. “At last she understood what she was meant to do. She would build her life up spreading joy, one child at a time.” Will she leave the girl’s house to be gifted to other children? Will she stay and somehow also reach ever more children? Readers will be left wondering. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 31.8% of actual size.)
Sadly, the storytelling runs aground. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72822-355-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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