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A late addition to our “signs of springtime” list: ’tis the season for construction!

This is right near our office on The Fenway, but cranes are popping up like crocuses all over Boston.

Here are some recent construction books for preschool- and early primary-aged kids (particularly vehicle-obsessed ones!), recommended by The Horn Book Magazine.

Jonathan Bean draws on his childhood memories to demonstrate the process of one family building its own house in his 2013 BGHB Picture Book Award–winning Building Our House. A little girl narrates the engaging and warm account; the steps are broken down into captions for half-page panels, while moments of greater import, such as setting the corners for the foundation, receive full- and double-page spreads. Family and friends make not just a house but a cozy home. (Farrar, 2013)

What can a crane pick up? According to Rebecca Kai Dotlich’s What Can a Crane Pick Up?, anything and everything. Dotlich’s energetic, smoothly rhyming text is well matched with Lowery’s childlike mixed-media illustrations. The images of happy, friendly-looking machines (and animals, planets, and underpants) are irresistible; the playful hand-lettered verse is full of silly surprises. Mike Lowery’s subdued palette balances the wacky scenes of smiley cranes taking on the challenges. (Knopf, 2012)

On his “big day,” Bulldozer practically flies across the construction site; he can’t wait to invite all his friends to his party. He starts with Digger: “Guess what today is!” But everyone appears too preoccupied with work to guess the answer to Bulldozer’s question. Poor Bulldozer: “‘No games.’ He sniffed. ‘No friends. No party.’” Of course, there is a party; everyone has secretly been working on constructing a giant birthday cake, which Crane hoists up, candles blazing. Birthday surprises, cake, and construction vehicles — little bulldozers will lift their blades up high for Candace Fleming and and Eric Rohmann’s Bulldozer’s Big Day. (Atheneum, 2015)

Charise Mericle Harper’s quirky Go! Go! Go! Stop! stars two traffic lights and a fleet of construction vehicles. Little Green shouts “GO!”, and Bulldozer, Dump Truck, Mixer, and friends get to work. But without a way to not go, things threaten to spiral out of control. Then a red “stranger” rolls onto the site, and disaster is averted — eventually. Harper’s action-packed illustrations feature cheerful trucks in colorful cartoonlike scenes. Lively dialogue adds to the storytime fun. (Knopf, 3–6 years)

In Machines Go to Work by William Low, each of six small vignettes introduces one or two machines (e.g., TV news helicopter); pose a question (“Is there an accident ahead?”); and, through foldout flaps, offers a (reassuring) answer (“No, a family of ducks is crossing the road”). This design, along with terrific sound effects, encourages listeners to join in. Digital art brightly colors each page with slightly impressionistic tones. (Holt, 2009)

Machinery-loving preschoolers are first introduced to a particular situation involving vehicles, from a garbage truck to a tower crane to an airplane in companion Machines Go to Work in the City. What happens next? Lift a flap (which provides an extended scene of the problem at hand) and find out. Just as they did in Machines Go to Work, Low’s painterly illustrations display the drama and excitement of a bustling cityscape.

A diligent T-square rallies its fellow tools to get to work building a shed in Aaron Meshon’s Tools Rule! One helpful illustration shows the tools, strewn about the lawn, but with captionlike arrows to identify what’s what. Meshon’s lively text is full of tool-centric wordplay; a detailed note describes his process for creating the digitally colored mixed-media illustrations of smiley tools with a can-do attitude. (Atheneum, 2014)

In Sally Sutton’s Demolition, a demolition crew tears down an old building, sorts scraps of material, and hauls the debris off to make room for a new construction project, revealed at the end to be a playground. The rhyming text, full of onomatopoeia and muscular action words, captures the excitement and energy of big trucks hard at work. Brian Lovelock’s meticulous illustrations give the job site a suitably dusty patina. (Candlewick, 2012)

Sutton and Lovelock offer a builder’s-eye view of a construction project with Demolition companion Construction. The rhyming text’s onomatopoeia and action verbs capture the site’s sounds; cleanly rendered illustrations feature heavy machinery, tools, and men and women hard at work. Listeners will enjoy guessing what the new building will be before the reveal: “The library’s here for everyone. / Ready… / STEADY… / READ!” (Candlewick, 2014)

Four indisputably cute overall-clad kitties don hard hats and hop into colorful earthmovers to dig, move, push, and smooth dirt at a construction site in Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges’s Construction Kitties. Shari Halpern’s irresistible gouache illustrations do the heavy lifting here, channeling Byron Barton’s style (strong black lines, rich hues) but with more subtlety of color. With its bold images and straightforward text, this book would make a good storytime choice.

The post Signs of springtime: construction appeared first on The Horn Book.

Planes Go

written & illustrated by Steve Light

Chronicle Books      8/12/2014

978-1-4521-2899-3

Age infant to 2     16 pages

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“The helicopter goes, ‘PITTATATATA PITTATATATA PITTATATATATA.’ The jumbo jet goes, ‘Wheeeeeeeee VRRRRRRRRRRUUUHHHHHHHHHMMM.’ The propeller plane goes, ‘HUK HUK HUK WHIRRRRRRR WHIRRRRRR.’ Prepare for liftoff with 8 exiting aircraft and the noises they make in this irresistible board book! The long, oversized format lends itself to the shape of the vehicles and stands out on the shelf, and the boisterous text begs to be read aloud.”

Opening

“The helicopter goes, PITTATATTATA PITTATATTATA PITTATATTATA”

Review

Planes Go will thrill any young boy—and girls, too—who love airplanes, and what child does not? You can sound just like a propeller plane, helicopter, or a blimp, entertaining your youngster as these different flying machines burst from the pages. The pages are extra thick for little hands that sometimes play rough. If jelly from that PB&J slips out from the bread, maybe landing on the supersonic jet, not to worry. The jelly, and most other kid substances, will wipe off the sturdy, glossy board book.

In addition to Planes Go, the series includes Trucks Go, Trains Go, and Diggers Go. The illustrations are colorful and full of the sounds each machine makes as it rumbles through the sky. There is a seaplane, helicopter, propeller plane, fighter plane, blimp, supersonic jet, and the space shuttle. Wherever you want to go, there is a plane to take you there. Read through the book once, adding your best plane imitations with help from the author and your child can take it from there. By the way, those airplanes sounds are examples of onomatopoeia. Brr, swish, whoop, wizz are also examples of onomatopoeia. When you try to imitate the sound anything makes, like a slithering snake, “Ssssssss,” you are using onomatopoeia.

I have a nephew who, when he was two-years-old would have fought me for this book and would want the other three books in the series. He loved cars, trucks, planes, scooters, and anything else that had power and moved. Planes Go, and all the other in the series, will ignite your youngsters imagination as the planes and helicopters take off for places only your child knows. These books are a great way to introduce curious young minds to the vehicles he or she is likely to see when traveling.  The book is longer than normal to accommodate the elongated bodies of many planes. I think this is a great series and youngsters will love the planes and the sounds each one makes, especially if it is mom or dad making those sounds.

PLANES GO. Text and illustrations  copyright © 2014 by Steve Light. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA.

Here is an Onomatopoeia Dictionary

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Purchase Planes Go at Amazon—B&N—Book Depository—Chronicle Books—your favorite bookstore.

Learn more about Planes Go HERE.

Meet the author / illustrator, Steve Light, at his website:    http://www.stevelightart.com/

Find more board books at the Chronicle Books website:    http://www.chroniclebooks.com/

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Also by Steve Light

Trucks Go

Trains Go

Diggers Go

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(review HERE)

Have You Seen My Dragon?

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Boats Go (2/01/2015)

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Need a break from that perennial favorite Cars and Trucks and Things That Go? These four new transportation-themed picture books for preschoolers combine well-paced texts, dynamic illustrations, and entertaining stories — the perfect companion for daytime journeys and journeys into night.

Byron Barton‘s My Bus (companion to My Car; Greenwillow, 2–4 years) takes readers along with Joe as he drives Bus #123 across a bold-hued landscape. “At my first stop, one dog gets on my bus. / At my second stop, two cats get on my bus.” After four stops, there are five dogs and five cats onboard. And then…Joe drops off his passengers in ones and twos at a boat, a train, and a plane; the last dog (“My dog!”) goes home with Joe in a car. Each stop offers more excitement for young motorheads (as well as some subtly introduced math concepts). (Greenwillow, 2–4 years)

“Here is the traffic, all ground to a halt, / and the policeman calls out… / ‘What’s causing this holdup? / Move along, now. Move along!’” The vehicles may be at a standstill in William Bee’s And the Cars Go…, but the rhythmic text motors along as the officer investigates the problem. Each double-page spread features a fancifully detailed auto and its idiosyncratic occupants; Bee’s stylish compositions with eye-popping colors have a distinctly sixties vibe. The predictably patterned, onomatopoeic verses encourage audience participation. (Candlewick, 3–6 years)

Charise Mericle Harper’s quirky Go! Go! Go! Stop! stars two traffic lights and a fleet of construction vehicles. Little Green shouts “GO!”, and Bulldozer, Dump Truck, Mixer, and friends get to work. But without a way to not go, things threaten to spiral out of control. Then a red “stranger” rolls onto the site, and disaster is averted — eventually. Harper’s action-packed illustrations feature cheerful trucks in colorful cartoonlike scenes. Lively dialogue adds to the storytime fun. (Knopf, 3–6 years)

Everything Goes: By Sea is the latest in Brian Biggs’s transportation-themed series. Henry and his parents (the intrepid travelers from Everything Goes: On Land and Everything Goes: In the Air) ride a car ferry to their island destination; along the way, they talk about the variety of boats on the water and the jobs those vessels do. There’s a brief (and helpful) explanation of buoyancy, along with some accessible history and a little science/engineering. The pleasingly busy cartoon illustrations are packed with details and visual jokes. Biggs navigates this nautical lesson with a steady hand. (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, 3–7 years)

From the March 2014 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.

The post Things that stop and go appeared first on The Horn Book.

In the March/April 2014 Horn Book Magazine, reviewer K. T. Horning asked author/illustrator Byron Barton about My Bus, his latest transportation celebration. Read the starred review here.

K. T. Horning: Joe from My Bus and Sam from My Car (Greenwillow, 2001) seem to lead parallel lives. And yet Joe’s passengers are animals and Sam’s are people. Do they reside in the same town, or even the same universe?

Byron Barton: Joe and Sam live in neighboring communities. They have different bus routes. The area has changed somewhat over time, but it is only by chance that, on one day, Joe had only cats and dogs for passengers. On another day and another bus route Joe or Sam could have chickens, pigs, or people on his bus. They all love to ride on buses, cars, trains, boats, and planes.

The post Byron Barton on My Bus appeared first on The Horn Book.

My Bus
by Byron Barton; illus. by the author
Preschool    Greenwillow    40 pp.
4/14    978-0-06-228736-6    $16.99    g

In a companion volume to My Car (rev. 11/01), we ride along with Joe as he drives Bus #123 across a bold-hued landscape populated with feline and canine passengers. “At my first stop, one dog gets on my bus. / At my second stop, two cats get on my bus.” After four stops, he points out he has five dogs and five cats riding on his bus. And here’s where the real fun for toddler transportation enthusiasts begins: Joe drops off one dog and two cats at a boat (“They sail away”), two dogs and one cat at a train, and one dog and two cats at a plane; the last little dog (“My dog!”) goes home with Joe in his car. Beyond the initial excitement many young children will feel as they share Joe’s journey and see the departing animals through the windows of their various vehicles, there is so much here for repeated readings (and there will be repeated readings). Barton ingeniously introduces the basic concepts of cardinal and ordinal numbers, addition, subtraction, and sets, but he does it all so subtly that even parents may not realize they’re getting a math lesson. And yet it’s all there for little brains to absorb and work out on their own as they “sail, ride, and fly away” again and again. Illustrated in Barton’s signature style, with bold, flat colors and with only the most important visual details included, this is a welcome companion to My Car.

The post Review of My Bus appeared first on The Horn Book.

While looking for cute Valentine's Day ideas I came across directions for a candy airplane valentine on the Family Fun website. I remember making similar airplanes when I was a kid and, if my memory serves me correctly, I believe that I first learned to make them in Girl Scouts.


The candy airplanes are made out of a roll of Smarties, a couple sticks of gum, and two Life-Saver candies for the wheels. A rubber band holds all the pieces of candy together to form an airplane. (Visit Family Fun for instructions on how to assemble.)

I created and printed a special heart Valentine themed gum wrapper cover like the one shown on the Family Fun site to add to our airplanes (click on the image to see the jpg and print). I think the decorated wrapper helps the airplane look prettier for Valentine's Day. The airplane is a little tricky to assemble and is probably a project suited more for older kids, but my kids enjoyed watching me make them and they really, really had a blast playing with them! I think I'll make a few more so my son can give them to his friends for Valentine's Day.

Some of the variations of this craft show it with a little message on a banner attached to the back of the plane. Here are a few cute Valentine airplane themed sayings:

It's plane to see - I want you for my Valentine.
Up, up and away! Happy Valentine's Day!
Above all, I want you for My Valentine.
You're just plane cool!
Have a high flying Valentine's Day!
Love is in the air!
Valentine, my heart soars for you!