Based on a real circus giant who lived in the 1800s, Andreasen’s story stands tall in every way—from page size to the outsized images of the towering man. Life is so quiet in Seville, Ohio, that you can hear the corn grow. Then a stranger comes to town. The giant of a man is so big that his head and shoulders stick out the window of the train. At seven feet, 11-and-a-half inches, Captain Bates is looking for a quiet home for himself and his wife (who is eight feet tall). The townsfolk want to make the giant feel at home, but the boardinghouse bed is too short, it takes four gallons of pancake batter to fill him up, and when he dances a jig at the square dance, he crashes through the floor. Captain Bates seems too big for Seville after all, but the townspeople come up with a tall solution. Cunning homespun illustrations effectively convey size contrasts of people and situations; scratchboard-like lines add dimension as bordered full-page art and opposite text heighten the spare narrative. A clever blend of tall-tale telling, historical anecdote and giant-sized appeal that truly measures up. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-0988-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2007
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
SEEN & HEARD
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
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