In homage to the days when gas was cheap and family fun was a Sunday drive in the country, author and illustrator provide readers with an elegiac outing in which children do not whine or get car sick. The day includes whizzing past fields, shopping at farm stands, blowing milkweed seeds, playing car games (when you pass a graveyard, lift both feet off the floor) and singing songs whose words are only half remembered. In perfect harmony with the author’s idyllic reminiscence, Burckhardt’s handsome acrylic-on-board illustrations have a primitive yet retro sensibility with a subtly crackled surface and predominating palette of turquoise and Granny Smith–green. Ribbons of country road thread through the pages unifying the pleasant whole. Question the accuracy of rear-seat shoulder harnesses, but don’t question the essential meaning: “the only place we wanted to go was Together, just our family, and a Sunday drive in the country took us there.” (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7636-2140-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
At her best, Rylant’s (The Ticky-Tacky Doll, below, etc.) sweetness and sentiment fills the heart; in this outing, however, sentimentality reigns and the end result is pretty gooey. Pandora keeps a lighthouse: her destiny is to protect ships at sea. She’s lonely, but loves her work. She rescues Seabold and heals his broken leg, and he stays on to mend his shipwrecked boat. This wouldn’t be so bad but Pandora’s a cat and Seabold a dog, although they are anthropomorphized to the max. Then the duo rescue three siblings—mice!—and make a family together, although Rylant is careful to note that Pandora and Seabold each have their own room. Choosing what you love, caring for others, making a family out of love, it is all very well, but this capsizes into silliness. Formatted to look like the start of a new series. Oh, dear. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-689-84880-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
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