3 GO TO LONDON
From the Learning Journeys series
by Oakley Graham ; illustrated by Olive May Green
A tour bus assembled from punch-out parts caps a whirlwind spin from the Tower to Buckingham Palace.
In a truly perfunctory storyline, newly arrived visitors Panda, Fox, and Donkey (leading a cast that, except for one alarmingly flushed royal, is all animal) find a letter to the Queen from her “first great grandchild, George.” Not knowing where she lives, the trio gads about from the Natural History Museum to the Tower, rides the Underground and the London Eye, pops into Madame Tussaud’s to view a “waxwork” model, and at last tracks the grateful royal recipient down. The higgledy-piggledy itinerary will defeat prospective young tourists, and even actual Londoners may have trouble recognizing the landmarks that are crammed into the garish, crazy-quilt cartoon illustrations (not to mention the taxis with steering wheels on the left). Just to make the general cheapness complete, the tour-bus model is not only complicated and tricky to assemble, but printed on such light card stock that it likely won’t survive being “driven” more than a meter or so.
At best a low-rent alternative to Jennie Maisels’ Pop-Up London (2012).
(Novelty. 6-8)