LOCOMOTIVE

Name: LOCOMOTIVE
Author: Maciej Szymanowicz

illustrated by Maciej Szymanowicz & developed by Big Rabbit ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2013

Children lucky enough to encounter this app will understand why certain adults mourn the demise of the night mail, the...

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A completely delightful interactive ride on an old train full of surprises.

From the beginning, the top-drawer artwork, filigreed, naïve and with burnished, antique color that gleams, captivates. The subject: An old steam engine with a good complement of wagons (as the English would say) filled with burly men and salamis; bananas and a resident monkey; grand pianos, piggies complete with butchers’ marks; milch cows (across-the-pond English, again); cannons and like entertainments. This provides readers with an opportunity to do some counting, learn some new words—stoker, bolster—and engage with the material. Readers can slide a window up and down or load the cannon to produce a bang of festive fireworks, place baggage into a jigsaw, pull a whistle chain and release a bunch of balloons (and then pop them). The text is curious and inviting, with an eccentric cadence that keeps it this side of child’s play: “And of these wagons there’s forty all told, / I can’t tell myself what they can all hold.” The background music is just that: in the background; merry, but pleasingly so. There is also a frame where the train slips quietly into being a toy train—a bow to the imagination—and then out, once again under steam, to resume its journey.

Children lucky enough to encounter this app will understand why certain adults mourn the demise of the night mail, the branch line and the narrow gauge. (iPad storybook app. 4-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2013

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Big Rabbit

Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013

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OTIS

From the Otis series

by Loren Long & illustrated by Loren Long ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2009

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Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
OTIS AND THE SCARECROW
by Loren Long ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
AN OTIS CHRISTMAS
by Loren Long ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
OTIS AND THE PUPPY
by Loren Long ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
THE YELLOW BUS
by Loren Long ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
NEVER FORGET ELEANOR
by Jason June ; illustrated by Loren Long

- BOOK REVIEW
CHANGE SINGS
by Amanda Gorman ; illustrated by Loren Long

- SEEN & HEARD
Loren Long Inks Book Deal With Roaring Brook Press

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TURKEY TROUBLE

From the Turkey Trouble series

by Wendi Silvano and illustrated by Lee Harper ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2009

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Turkey’s in the “kind of trouble where it’s almost Thanksgiving...and you’re the main course.” Accordingly, Turkey tries on disguise after disguise, from horse to cow to pig to sheep, at each iteration being told that he looks nothing like the animal he’s trying to mimic (which is quite true, as Harper’s quirky watercolors make crystal clear). He desperately squeezes a red rubber glove onto his head to pass as a rooster, only to overhear the farmer suggest a poultry plan B when he’s unable to turn up the turkey. Turkey’s horrified expression as he stands among the peppers and tomatoes—in November? Chalk it up to artistic license—is priceless, but his surroundings give him an idea. Good fun, but it may lead to a vegetarian table or two. (Picture book. 4-8)