One Tractor

February 1, 2008
K-Gr 2-This is a counting book, a vehicle book, and a pirate adventure, all rolled into one appealing package. It starts with one red-headed boy and a toy tractor. Next come two airplanes, one of which is piloted by a mouse. The fun really gets rolling when three miniature pirate ships arrive, complete with crews of the jolliest sort. The little swashbucklers cavort through the remaining scenes of big machines at work. There are four cranes, five big trucks, six city buses, seven fire trucks, eight bulldozers, and nine railroad cars, and the charmingly playful pirates are not always adept at using this big equipment. In the end, after rides on 10 bicycles, they return to their ships and sail away. But it is all a dream. The boy is shown sound asleep in the grass with his toy vehicles around him. The fabulous watercolor illustrations show blue sky, green grass, and all the commotion going on in between."Ieva Bates, Ann Arbor District Library, MI"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2008
In his own backyard a toddler imagines and counts vehicles and machines, from 1 tractor to 10 bicycles. Pirates sail in on 3 floating boats; 5 big trucks are ready to pull; 6 city buses are Stopping, / going all day long. He joins in the action, sitting in a basket hoisted by 4 cranes, helping firemen in 7 fire truckshosing red hot flames away from a woeful dragon. A few pictures may be too cluttered for thepreschoolers to grasp at first (its hard to count the 10 bicycles that are locked closely together in the rack). But withits simple rhyme andnicely detaileddouble-page, watercolor spreads, the book does give children an opportunity torecognize the kind of imaginative play they engage in every day as well asjoin in the counting action that happens on the pages.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)