A wonderful, well-illustrated look at the relationship between a grandparent and granddaughter who live miles apart.
A grandmother navigates the route from the suburbs to the big city in this book about travel, kindness, and love by Mackavey (The Artist and the Lava Beast, 2013), with illustrations from Johnson.
Yiayia is prepared to visit her granddaughter. After her dogsitter arrives, she gets into her small blue car and drives away from her rural home and off toward the city. She’s soon surrounded by other vehicles, with her car crouched between a yellow school bus and a green-and-red truck, both vibrantly portrayed. Yiayia arrives at the train station, where people crowd the escalators; she hurries aboard the train and finally has a moment to relax. Through Yiayia’s looking at photos on her smartphone, the story reveals that her granddaughter and daughter-in-law are of Korean heritage and that the family is a happy, loving one. When Yiayia reaches Penn Station in New York City, she finds herself surrounded again, and it isn’t until she hails a taxi that she realizes she’s lost her baggage. At the lost-luggage claim, a worker helps her pick out the right blue bag. Observant readers will notice the right bag right away, but they’ll enjoy Yiayia’s fun refrain (“That’s much too round….That’s much too big!”). After recovering her bag, she grabs a taxi and finally makes her way to Amalia’s apartment, where her granddaughter greets her with a warm hug. The story here is slight, but Johnson’s pitch-perfect illustrations bring it to life. It’s exceptional in its diversity, as it clearly indicates that Amalia’s parents are from two different cultures. Children who are interested in modes of transportation will happily pick out several that Yiayia uses, and emergent readers will notice the bold text of “taxi” and “PENN STATION,” which they may sound out as adults read to them.
A wonderful, well-illustrated look at the relationship between a grandparent and granddaughter who live miles apart.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5151-2186-2
Page Count: 36
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Little Blue Truck keeps on truckin’—but not without some backfires.
Little Blue Truck feels, well, blue when he delivers valentine after valentine but receives nary a one.
His bed overflowing with cards, Blue sets out to deliver a yellow card with purple polka dots and a shiny purple heart to Hen, one with a shiny fuchsia heart to Pig, a big, shiny, red heart-shaped card to Horse, and so on. With each delivery there is an exchange of Beeps from Blue and the appropriate animal sounds from his friends, Blue’s Beeps always set in blue and the animal’s vocalization in a color that matches the card it receives. But as Blue heads home, his deliveries complete, his headlight eyes are sad and his front bumper droops ever so slightly. Blue is therefore surprised (but readers may not be) when he pulls into his garage to be greeted by all his friends with a shiny blue valentine just for him. In this, Blue’s seventh outing, it’s not just the sturdy protagonist that seems to be wilting. Schertle’s verse, usually reliable, stumbles more than once; stanzas such as “But Valentine’s Day / didn’t seem much fun / when he didn’t get cards / from anyone” will cause hitches during read-alouds. The illustrations, done by Joseph in the style of original series collaborator Jill McElmurry, are pleasant enough, but his compositions often feel stiff and forced.
Little Blue Truck keeps on truckin’—but not without some backfires. (Board book. 1-4)Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-27244-1
Page Count: 20
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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