McToad Mows Tiny Island

Starred review from June 8, 2015
Angleberger’s (Crankee Doodle) sly charmer is a gift to any reader besotted with engines, motors, and combustible fuel. His toad hero, McToad, has a weekly routine: “Every other day of the week he mows the grass on... Big Island. But Thursday is the day he mows... Tiny Island.” It’s not the mowing that’s so interesting, but the process by which McToad’s bright red riding lawnmower gets to Tiny Island, a sequence that involves a truck, train, helicopter, and more. Hendrix (Shooting at the Stars), who might be a bit of a gearhead himself, lavishes attention on the details—exhaust pipes, crane assemblies, securing straps, and more—and his playful hand-lettered type makes every step of McToad’s journey feel special. After the spate of transportation mania is complete and McToad arrives on Tiny Island, readers will be amused to find that its lawn is roughly the size of the mower itself. It’s an unabashed celebration of the pleasure of using big machines to move things around—just because. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Caryn Wiseman, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Rebecca Sherman, Writers House.

July 15, 2015
McToad likes Thursdays, the day he mows Tiny Island.Every Thursday, he rides the mower out of the shed onto his big truck and puts the mower onto a train with a forklift. The train takes the mower to the airport, where it is carried by conveyor belt to an airplane. The mower is flown to the other side of the island, where a baggage buggy takes it to a helicopter that transports it to a dock. There, it is lowered by crane onto a boat, then sailed to the island. The island is truly tiny; in fact the mower takes up most of the small lawn that sits atop the island. The task at hand is swiftly completed (after a sip of lemonade for McToad and an oil refill for the tractor), and an arrowed diagram shows the mower returning home by the same route in reverse. The book jacket proclaims this "a transportation tale," and it certainly covers a dizzying array of modes, but at a time when the scientific community-and even the pope-is issuing ever sterner warnings about climate change, it's hard not to see McToad's weekly odyssey as anything but an unnecessary journey and a profligate consumption of resources. The black smoke issuing from McToad's tractor chimney throughout as well as the patent ludicrousness of the entire endeavor only serves to emphasize this. Hendrix's richly detailed, brightly colored spreads make the book visually engaging, but on the whole it feels out of sync with evolving sensibilities and awareness. (Picture book. 3-5)

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September 1, 2015

PreS-Gr 2-McToad, apparently the owner and sole proprietor and employee of McToad Lawn Care, Inc., mows Big Island every day of the week-except Thursdays. That's the day he reserves for Tiny Island. And what a production it is to get his revved-up mower there, which is the whole point of the book, a vehicle lover's treat. In order to carry the mower all the way to the minuscule patch of grass, McToad relies on various modes of transport and other conveyances, including a truck, train, forklift, airplane, helicopter, boat, and crane. Readers will note with a chuckle that once the mower is actually there the job is easily dispatched, since the mower looks to be the same size as the island. Then transporting it back home occurs in reverse, and young readers are offered a nifty exercise in mapping and sequencing along the way. There's little story here, but transportation enthusiasts probably won't mind or care; they'll simply appreciate the round-trip journey and the bright smile McToad wears as he makes it. The pen and ink and acrylic illustrations are boldly colored and full of energy and humor (witness the sly visual references to the author's famed "Origami Yoda" books), and the name of each vehicle or conveyance is rendered in hand lettering in different sizes, fonts, and colors, making each word stand out. VERDICT A must-have bit of silliness for vehicle mavens everywhere.-Carol Goldman, Queens Library, NY

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2015
Grades K-2 McToad, a spindly limbed amphibian with a pendulous chin, mows the grass on Big Island. Thursdays are his favorite, however, because he gets to mow Tiny Island. It's not so much the destination he loves but the journeyfirst, he loads the mower onto a truck, which takes him to a forklift, which loads his mower on a train, which goes to the airport, where a conveyor belt loads the mower on a plane, which takes him to the other side of Big Island. A baggage buggy, helicopter, boat, and crane later, and McToad is finally on Tiny Island (so tiny there is barely enough room for his mower). And when he is done, he takes the whole trip in reverse. Hendrix's sunny, comical illustrations use hugely expressive fonts and the outsize vehicles (all of which are branded McToad Lawncare ) to great effect, emphasizing the happy landscaper's outlandish journey to do a teensy, tiny job. With large, zany illustrations and rapidly escalating hilarity, this lark of a book is sure to entertain big-machine-loving kids during storytime.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)