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THE ROAD THAT TRUCKS BUILT

Name: THE ROAD THAT TRUCKS BUILT
Author: Susanna Leonard Hill
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9546-2

by Susanna Leonard Hill ; illustrated by Erica Sirotich ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2017

Truck-hungry children may love this unreservedly, but it will make environmentalists and transportation reformers weep

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“This is the traffic that’s moving too slow. / Cars and buses have nowhere to go. / What is the answer? I’m guessing you know.”

Anyone who guessed light rail, carpool incentives, congestion pricing, or bike lanes would be sadly mistaken. Nope: “The trucks need to build a new road!” And to the rhythm of “The House That Jack Built,” they do. “This is the SCRAPER whose sharp metal blade / forges a new path through forest and glade / to make way for the road that trucks built.” Children who have a sense of verb tense may wonder why it’s “built” instead of “build,” but sufficiently truck-inclined tots will probably overlook this and focus on the grinning road-building machines that smooth the roadbed, spread and then flatten the asphalt (“all bubbly and black”), and paint the lines. All the vehicles have headlight eyes and smiles and are presumably sentient, but a couple of hard hat–topped birds supervise. The final spread depicts the new four-lane road lined with tulips, the smiling construction trucks arrayed on either side. Although the traffic is not yet bumper-to-bumper, there are enough vehicles on it to make readers wonder how long it will be before the next “forest and glade” are destroyed. An illustrated key to the trucks concludes the book.

Truck-hungry children may love this unreservedly, but it will make environmentalists and transportation reformers weep . (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: July 25, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4814-9546-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION | CHILDREN'S POETRY

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YOU'RE THE STAR IN MY SKY
by Susanna Leonard Hill ; illustrated by Natalie Vasilica

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ALPHABEDTIME
by Susanna Leonard Hill ; illustrated by Betsy Snyder

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DEAR GRANDMA
by Susanna Leonard Hill ; illustrated by John Joseph

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TOMORROW IS WAITING

by Kiley Frank ; illustrated by Aaron Meshon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 8, 2019

There’s always tomorrow.

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A lyrical message of perseverance and optimism.

The text uses direct address, which the title- and final-page illustrations suggest comes from an adult voice, to offer inspiration and encouragement. The opening spreads reads, “Tonight as you sleep, a new day stirs. / Each kiss good night is a wish for tomorrow,” as the accompanying art depicts a child with black hair and light skin asleep in a bed that’s fantastically situated in a stylized landscape of buildings, overpasses, and roadways. The effect is dreamlike, in contrast with the next illustration, of a child of color walking through a field and blowing dandelion fluff at sunrise. Until the last spread, each child depicted in a range of settings is solitary. Some visual metaphors falter in terms of credibility, as in the case of a white-appearing child using a wheelchair in an Antarctic ice cave strewn with obstacles, as the text reads “you’ll explore the world, only feeling lost in your imagination.” Others are oblique in attempted connections between text and art. How does a picture of a pale-skinned, black-haired child on a bridge in the rain evoke “first moments that will dance with you”? But the image of a child with pink skin and brown hair scaling a wall as text reads “there will be injustice that will challenge you, and it will surprise you how brave you can be” is clearer.

There’s always tomorrow. (Picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-101-99437-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Dial Books

Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

- BOOK REVIEW
THAT ALWAYS HAPPENS SOMETIMES
by Kiley Frank ; illustrated by K-Fai Steele

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KIYOSHI'S WALK

by Mark Karlins ; illustrated by Nicole Wong ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 9, 2021

See, hear, touch, taste, smell...and imagine poetry all around you.

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A neighborhood walk unleashes the power of poetry.

Kiyoshi, a boy of Japanese heritage, watches his poet grandfather, Eto, write a poem in calligraphy. Intrigued, Kiyoshi asks, “Where do poems come from?” So begins a meditative walk through their bustling neighborhood, in which Kiyoshi discovers how to use his senses, his power of observation, and his imagination to build a poem. After each scene, Eto jots down a quick poem that serves as both a creative activity and an instruction for Kiyoshi. Eventually Kiyoshi discovers his own poetic voice, and together the boy and his grandfather find poems all around them. Spare, precise prose is coupled with the haiku Kiyoshi and his grandfather create, building the story through each new scene to expand Kiyoshi’s understanding of the origin of poems. Sensory language, such as flicked, whooshed, peeked, and reeled, not only builds readers’ vocabulary, but also models the vitality and precision of creative writing. The illustrations are just as thoughtfully crafted. Precisely rendered, the artwork is soft, warm, and captivating, offering vastly different perspectives and diverse characters who make up an apparently North American neighborhood that feels both familiar and new for a boy discovering how to view the world the way a poet does. Earth tones, coupled with bright yellows, pinks, and greens, draw readers in and encourage them to linger over each spread. An author’s note provides additional information about haiku.

See, hear, touch, taste, smell...and imagine poetry all around you. (Picture book. 4-7)