Won’t last forever, but hours of entertainment while it does.
Flaps within flaps offer fun and occasional frustration in this highly interactive, travel-themed tome for tots.
Several two-page set pieces depict a variety of conveyances and heavy equipment in action, in tableaux depicting a city, harbor, airport, building site, railway station, and freeway. Scenes are dense with detail, especially as readers begin opening the many flaps built into the illustrations, affording peeks inside vehicles, buildings, boxes, and baskets as well as behind clouds and below the sea, for example. Vignettes are introduced in rhyme: “This town is busy—everyone is on the go. How many vehicles do you know?” In addition to the obvious—a bike, bus, taxi, police car, and van—a cloud-shaped flap reveals an airplane, and one on the van folds back to show the scooter inside. A flap on a building reveals a woman on an exercise bike; a door beyond her conceals a person watching a televised stock-car race in the next room. With more than 70 flaps and a multitude of details, random facts, and vocabulary, this is a potentially longer read than most board books. The art is simple, cartoonish, and unambiguously representational; humans depicted represent a range of races, ages, genders, and abilities. The book is sturdy and the pages thick, but the flaps can be tough to operate, especially on first opening, and some will likely rip over time. Companion title My Peekaboo Farm publishes simultaneously.
Won’t last forever, but hours of entertainment while it does. (Board book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68010-593-3
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Smoother rides are out there.
Mommy and Bonnie—two anthropomorphic rodents—go for a joyride and notice a variety of conveyances around their busy town.
The pair encounter 22 types of vocational vehicles as they pass various sites, including a fire engine leaving a firehouse, a school bus approaching a school, and a tractor trailer delivering goods to a supermarket. Narrated in rhyming quatrains, the book describes the jobs that each wheeled machine does. The text uses simple vocabulary and sentences, with sight words aplenty. Some of the rhymes don't scan as well as others, and the description of the mail truck’s role ("A mail truck brings / letters and cards / to mailboxes / in people's yards) ignores millions of readers living in yardless dwellings. The colorful digitally illustrated spreads are crowded with animal characters of every type hustling and bustling about. Although the art is busy, observant viewers may find humor in details such as a fragile item falling out of a moving truck, a line of ducks holding up traffic, and a squirrel’s spilled ice cream. For younger children enthralled by vehicles, Sally Sutton’s Roadwork (2011) and Elizabeth Verdick’s Small Walt series provide superior text and art and kinder humor. Children who have little interest in cars, trucks, and construction equipment may find this offering a yawner. Despite being advertised as a beginner book, neither text nor art recommend this as an engaging choice for children starting to read independently. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Smoother rides are out there. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-37725-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
The lack of real excitement will make these helpers fade from memory like sirens on a distant road.
Part emergency adventure, part reassurance that help is on the way—youngsters fascinated by vehicles with sirens will be attracted to this board book.
Straightforward, declarative text and fanciful, somewhat futuristic pictures describe “a big beautiful world, filled with awesome adventures.” The second spread previews the helpers and their vehicles with profile views of six types of vehicles against a clean white background. The final spread shows front views of the same six rescue vehicles. In between, spreads focus on three different emergencies. In a busy spread headlined “Uh-oh, an accident,” readers see a police car, an ambulance, and a tow truck, while a police helicopter hovers overhead. “Uh-oh, a storm!” shows the water-based versions of emergency vehicles against a rain-gray background. “Uh-oh, a fire!” focuses on firefighters, with police and EMTs playing supporting roles. All the vehicles are staffed by smiling animal characters reminiscent of Richard Scarry’s Busytown creatures but without the whimsy of those classics. The final text proclaims that “helpers…are the ones who save the world.” The wordy text and detailed pictures make this board book most suited for older toddlers intrigued by emergency vehicles, but the placid delivery is out of sync with the notion that the depicted world is in peril.
The lack of real excitement will make these helpers fade from memory like sirens on a distant road. (Board book. 3-4)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-0599-8
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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