I was on vacation this week, so I left a nice simple bouncy storytime program for my replacement to run. I always feel so bad when I miss, partly because I really enjoy storytime and seeing the kids every week, but also because I feel honor-bound to leave a good program behind, so it often has really good stories that I wish I were reading myself!
Big Truck and Little Truck
Jan Carr, illustrated by Ivan Bates
ISBN: 0439071771
Dreamy pastel-bright watercolors of a little truck stretching to meet the requirements of a big-truck job.
Big Truck has been teaching Little Truck for a long time, and they do all the jobs together: go to the market, pull things out of ditches, haul veggies and compost, and everything else needed on the farm. But when Big Truck has to go to the shop for a while, can Little Truck manage everything alone for the first time? Sweet, satisfying, and re-assuring, all while being "trucky" enough for the most die-hard enthusiast.
Calling All Cars (boardbook)
Sue Fliess, illustrated by Sarah Beise
ISBN: 9781492638360
Bright poppy "modern" cartoon illustrations of all sorts of cars.
This is like a modern-day short version of a Richard Scarry's "Things that Go" sort of book. It's cute and quick and fun, and very modern (in the "wow this is really going to be dated in a couple dozen years" sort of way) in the artistic sense. The narrative roughly follows the course of a day, but it really is just a rhyme as an excuse to illustrate a whole lot of cars and trucks.
Zoom! Zoom! Sounds of things that go in the city
Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Ted Carpenter
ISBN: 9781442483156
Retro-pop illustrations in quad-tones (blue, red, yellow, black) and a fun swinging rhyme structure.
Catchy rhymes, cute retro cityscapes and cars, and a fun lighthearted set of rhymes, with onomatopoeic highlight words on each spread. Each one has the focus on a different type of cityscape: a morning scene with trash trucks and busses, a highway under construction, a metro train, ambulances, ice-cream trucks... This one does have non-cars: bicycles, joggers, skateboards, etc, but it's still very vehicle-oriented, so I kept it, just because it's so pretty and fun.
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cars. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
New Arrivals: Graphic Novel: Lowriders in Space, Cathy Camper & Raul the Third
Lowriders in Space
Cathy Camper, illustrations by Raul the Third
ISBN: 9781452121550
Read February 15, 2015
Graphic Novel, bilingual (English/Spanish)
Tri-tone ball-point-pen illustrations wind crazily through the pages of a mythic "lowrider" origin story.
This was super-cute. A trio of mechanics toils away in a shop, dreaming of the day when they can labor for themselves (and not get yelled at by the big boss). Lupe Impala (yes, she's a girl, yes, she's a deer, yes she's a mechanic) is the leader of this tiny pack, and she's joined by a mosquito auto-detailer (he uses his schozz to paint the fine lines) and a washing-and-buffing master octopus (who is frankly just adorable).
The trio enter a contest for trick cars that promises a prize of the car filled with cash, and they start work on their ancient rust-bucket Chevy (yes, it's an Impala, how did you guess?), raiding the local abandoned air-field for useful bits and pieces. After the car is kitted out, their first test drive shoots them out into space, where really loose mythology and astronomy bedeck and gift their car with beautiful stellar flourishes and details.
Between the totally mesmerizing art (really - everything is drawn with a ballpoint pen in blue, black, or red, on old paper-bag-colored paper) and the sheer joy of the madcap narrative, this really is a great cultural intro for just about anyone.
Really stunning, and I'm glad to have it in our collection!
Cathy Camper, illustrations by Raul the Third
ISBN: 9781452121550
Read February 15, 2015
Graphic Novel, bilingual (English/Spanish)
Tri-tone ball-point-pen illustrations wind crazily through the pages of a mythic "lowrider" origin story.
This was super-cute. A trio of mechanics toils away in a shop, dreaming of the day when they can labor for themselves (and not get yelled at by the big boss). Lupe Impala (yes, she's a girl, yes, she's a deer, yes she's a mechanic) is the leader of this tiny pack, and she's joined by a mosquito auto-detailer (he uses his schozz to paint the fine lines) and a washing-and-buffing master octopus (who is frankly just adorable).
The trio enter a contest for trick cars that promises a prize of the car filled with cash, and they start work on their ancient rust-bucket Chevy (yes, it's an Impala, how did you guess?), raiding the local abandoned air-field for useful bits and pieces. After the car is kitted out, their first test drive shoots them out into space, where really loose mythology and astronomy bedeck and gift their car with beautiful stellar flourishes and details.
Between the totally mesmerizing art (really - everything is drawn with a ballpoint pen in blue, black, or red, on old paper-bag-colored paper) and the sheer joy of the madcap narrative, this really is a great cultural intro for just about anyone.
Really stunning, and I'm glad to have it in our collection!
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Tuesday Storytime: Wheels in the City
Got a fun new rhyming book in, and made an easy match with some of my perennial favorites.
Zoom! Zoom! Sounds of Things that Go in the City
Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Tad Carpenter
ISBN: 9781442483156
Personified objects and busy, sharp-edged, primary-color illustrations.
The main stanza rhymes are easy to find on each spread in a blocked-out section of the busy pages, but the same can't be said for the "sound effects" - which is my only quibble. The sounds are actually illustrated into the spread, and share the same saturation and color and design as the page around it - making them a little hard to find during a busy storytime.
Not too long, not too complicated, and a nice mix of types and varieties of vehicles - from skateboards to subways to concrete mixers - all experience a day in the busy city, from earliest morning of joggers and delivery trucks to latest night of home-going partiers and tired subway riders.
My Car
Byron Barton
ISBN: 9780060296247
Bright blocky childlike shapes, in vivid contrasting colors.
Sam tells the reader directly all about his car, which he loves, washes, cares for, fuels, and drives carefully into town to begin his work as a bus driver. (In our delivery this morning, we got a new Byron Barton book that has a bus on the cover. If this is a sequel to My Car, I'm going to be really happy.) Short, direct, straightforward, and still has lots of fun details - a breakdown of the parts of a car (body, chassis, wheels, steering wheel, engine) a nice snapshot of a gas station (with a really amusingly dated price tag for the gas), and a collection of street-signs to identify.
The Adventures of Taxi Dog
Debra and Sal Barracca, illustrated by Mark Buehner
ISBN: 0803706715
Reading Rainbow Book: illustrations are thick vivid oils over acrylic in grimy but vibrant colors.
This book has an ulterior motive - it's written to raise awareness of the plight of city strays. However, that simply forms the origin story of Maxi the Taxi Dog, and at about the halfway point, it moves from being the story of his rescue into the story of his life working the streets with his taxi-driver owner Jim. They pick up interesting fares: from the opera singer to the requisite wife having a baby to the even more requisite how-many-clowns-can-fit in the taxi scene. The story is written in delightful rhyme that I personally find super-easy to read with feeling and humor. There are sequels, but none are quite as good as the original.
Zoom! Zoom! Sounds of Things that Go in the City
Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Tad Carpenter
ISBN: 9781442483156
Personified objects and busy, sharp-edged, primary-color illustrations.
The main stanza rhymes are easy to find on each spread in a blocked-out section of the busy pages, but the same can't be said for the "sound effects" - which is my only quibble. The sounds are actually illustrated into the spread, and share the same saturation and color and design as the page around it - making them a little hard to find during a busy storytime.
Not too long, not too complicated, and a nice mix of types and varieties of vehicles - from skateboards to subways to concrete mixers - all experience a day in the busy city, from earliest morning of joggers and delivery trucks to latest night of home-going partiers and tired subway riders.
My Car
Byron Barton
ISBN: 9780060296247
Bright blocky childlike shapes, in vivid contrasting colors.
Sam tells the reader directly all about his car, which he loves, washes, cares for, fuels, and drives carefully into town to begin his work as a bus driver. (In our delivery this morning, we got a new Byron Barton book that has a bus on the cover. If this is a sequel to My Car, I'm going to be really happy.) Short, direct, straightforward, and still has lots of fun details - a breakdown of the parts of a car (body, chassis, wheels, steering wheel, engine) a nice snapshot of a gas station (with a really amusingly dated price tag for the gas), and a collection of street-signs to identify.
The Adventures of Taxi Dog
Debra and Sal Barracca, illustrated by Mark Buehner
ISBN: 0803706715
Reading Rainbow Book: illustrations are thick vivid oils over acrylic in grimy but vibrant colors.
This book has an ulterior motive - it's written to raise awareness of the plight of city strays. However, that simply forms the origin story of Maxi the Taxi Dog, and at about the halfway point, it moves from being the story of his rescue into the story of his life working the streets with his taxi-driver owner Jim. They pick up interesting fares: from the opera singer to the requisite wife having a baby to the even more requisite how-many-clowns-can-fit in the taxi scene. The story is written in delightful rhyme that I personally find super-easy to read with feeling and humor. There are sequels, but none are quite as good as the original.
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