Surreally unsatisfying.
The trip to Grandma's house goes through many remarkable places.
A light-skinned child with short dark hair, surrounded by scattered toys and pictures and crayons, hardly seems ready when Mom announces that it's time to go. They're barely out of the neighborhood before the first "Are we there yet?" And that question is repeated over and over as they drive their little red car on a highway filled with various vehicles, across a long suspension bridge, and through farm country and then a desert. Even these ordinary settings have weird touches in McCauley’s vivid, posterlike double-page spreads: there’s a worm riding in a giant paper airplane near the bridge; a minotaur stands in the farm’s field; and a T. Rex looms in the desert. The locations grow quirkier, going underwater and even into outer space, where a young three-eyed extraterrestrial in a flying saucer echoes, “Are we there yet?” Finally at Grandma's house (which is surrounded by topiaries of many of the figures seen along the way), the child astonishingly pronounces the journey: "Boring." McCauley's mixed-media illustrations are bright and slyly amusing; readers will thrill at picking out the peculiar details, most of which have their roots in the child’s toys scattered at the beginning. Was the duo’s anything-but-boring journey all in the child’s head? Regardless, the cynical punch line seems to undercut what appeared to be a celebration of the boundless imagination.
Surreally unsatisfying. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-3155-9
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Should appeal to all the little grump trucks hauling their feelings about.
When dump trucks get angry (really, really angry), head for the hills!
Little Dump Truck is “the happiest member of the construction crew.” Assisting everyone from Excavator to Bulldozer, she hauls her load merrily. But sometimes things just don’t go her way. In rapid succession, dirt is blown in her face, a tire is punctured, and a flock of birds mistake her for a lavatory. Now she’s Little Grump Truck, and the exceedingly poor advice from her co-workers (“Ignore it. You’ll be fine”; “Shake it off!”) pushes her too far. After Little Grump Truck unloads (figuratively and literally) on her colleagues, everyone else has the “grumpies” too. It isn’t until she closes her eyes and focuses that Little Dump Truck is able to clear her mind and lighten her mood. Apologies are in order, and soon everything is humming (for the time being, anyway). Though the narrative doesn’t drill the message home, both child and adult readers alike will hopefully pick up on the fact that pithy aphorisms are maddeningly unhelpful when one is in a bad mood. Gray skies accompany the dump truck’s mood, which is depicted as an ever morphing agglomeration of hard, black scribbles. The accompanying art serves its purpose, investing its trucks with personality via time-honored headlight, windshield-wiper, and grille facial features. Little Dump Truck has a purple cab and green bed and a single lash on each headlight eye. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Should appeal to all the little grump trucks hauling their feelings about. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30081-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While it’s cute and will help to complete vehicle lovers’ collections, this package doesn’t do much to address school fears...
Rhyming verses stretch out the job of a school bus to 12 spreads.
Driving down the road, picking up kids and dropping them off, visiting the mechanic, operating the wheelchair platform and going around a bend are a few of the things the yellow vehicle does in the job it so obviously loves, as evidenced by its smiling bumper, cheerful eyes and pink cheeks—all vehicle parts. Each verse starts with “I’m a little school bus,” so readers (especially those reading aloud) will be hard-pressed not to try to force the rhymes into the tune for “I’m a Little Teapot.” Some work better than others, both at fitting the tune and scanning well. “I’m a little school bus / waiting by the walk. / Boys and girls climb on, / sit and laugh and talk.” Kolar’s digital illustrations are cartoon-bright, the people are nicely diverse, and there’s not a grumpy face to be found. Oddly, the creators choose not to focus on a single day; the illustrations go from skirt- and shorts-clad children to a snow day and back to T-shirts in just three spreads. There’s not much on bus safety (save lining up to get on and don’t put your hands out the windows), and the pictures never show the inside of the bus.
While it’s cute and will help to complete vehicle lovers’ collections, this package doesn’t do much to address school fears or preparedness in the preschool audience it appears to be aimed at. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: June 24, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9435-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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