Review by Booklist Review
Letters. Words. Sentences. Paragraphs. These are the foundations of writing, and this oversize book uses direct language and terrific artwork to show children how literal and figurative construction works. Paul's free verse is comprised of one or two lines on each page: Begin your new construction with twenty-six letters. Or Pile your words like blocks into sentence towers. As sentences are framed into paragraph villages and paragraphs are stacked into chapter cities, a young boy in a hard hat labors mightily. As he hammers and shovels mortar, at first it is difficult to see the actual connection to letters, just a lot of close-ups of building procedures. But as the view moves back, chapter cities appear and children who look closely will see how the structures are built from letters. In the last spread, the boy, still wearing his hard hat, is reading the book that has been constructed. The art, rendered in pencil and digital color, seems almost three-dimensional and will fascinate readers. Teachers will find many uses for this.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Construction devotees will adore the first half of this tall-format book, ostensibly about building: Cyrus (Tangle Town) combines ginormous-scaled, blocky images with loving detail (the ropiness of poured concrete, the tangle of cord attached to a jackhammer's air compressor). They'll also envy the boy in the hardhat who's confidently doing all the work. But readers may have trouble figuring out what exactly is being built. The concept: words, sentences and paragraphs are the building blocks of books. But as the components are absorbed into the whole, they lose their distinctiveness, and the end product-a vaguely Mediterranean fairy-tale village to illustrate "a whole world of book"-is disappointing. Paul's (The Seasons Sewn) poem presents another problem. The short lines impede narrative momentum, and the figures of speech ("Mortar each sentence/ with punctuation,/ then frame your sentences/ into paragraph villages") may be too abstract for this audience. Ages 5-7. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 4-Using a construction site complete with heavy equipment set on bold spreads, this large-scale picture book is a visual and verbal metaphor as letters combine to make words and words are arranged into sentences. Paragraphs grow from there until they turn into chapters. A great way to attract reluctant boys to writing, but so visually stirring it has broad appeal. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
A worker hammers larger-than-life letters into words then piles them into "sentence towers," eventually crafting "paragraph villages" and "chapter cities." The construction metaphor suggests that writing gives us the power to build amazing new worlds. Cyrus's striking illustrations are technical yet fanciful and depict the building process from a variety of perspectives. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
While the idea behind this visually dazzling effort has great potential, the execution may leave some feeling disappointed. In the world Paul and Cyrus have created, an androgynous construction worker hammers enormous letters into words, then piles the words into sentence towers that are held together with punctuation mortar. Framing organizes sentences into paragraphs, while stacked paragraphs create chapter cities. "Keep on buildinguntil you have createda whole world of book." The pencil-and-digital artwork varies in perspective from extreme wide-angle to superclose-up views, maximizing the impact of the illustrations and the construction theme. However, for the purposes of teaching children about writing, a preponderance of wide-angle views might have been in order. While the text describes sentence towers and their punctuation mortar, readers never get to see a completed one. And beyond the sentence level, the buildings simply look like tall houses with a letter at the roofline. The final illustration is masterfulthe view over the construction worker's shoulder at the completed book, peopled with characters and full of action. For abstract thinkers, this could be a powerful tool. (Picture book. 7-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
