Review by Booklist Review
Starting with the cover image of a dragon-emblazoned monster truck surrounded by a constellation of zooming vehicles, this picture-book-size, photo-packed volume offers a visual feast for young gearheads. Each of the seven sections focuses on a different transportation machine, from a basic bicycle to high-speed trains and the crawler-transporters that NASA uses to carry space shuttle crafts to the launch pad. The clear, direct text is brief, with just a few bites of information on each page, but taken as a whole, the book delivers a wealth of accessible facts. Still, it's the images that are the main attraction here, and interested kids will be entranced by the multiple color photos of machines at work on each page. A list of suggested activities closes each section and invites interactive fun, but this title will find its largest audience among young browsers, including preschoolers, who will simply want to flip through the pages again and again and lose themselves in this gallery of mechanical marvels.--Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-6-This is a great big book full of all kinds of vehicles, but it has some great big problems. Each section opens with the question, "What is a bike?," .a car? .a train? .a dump truck? and then provides the answer in an easy-to-read text. However, the vocabulary is not consistent. Words such as "traction," "tread," "fertilizer," "insecticide," and "herbicide" are omitted, but "suspension" and "maneuverable" are used. Most problematic is the section on "Tractors and Farm Vehicles." The double-bladed plow that is shown is most likely of European origin and not usually seen in this country. The plowed ground is on the wrong side of the tractor and a plow does not make furrows or "chop up the dirt." Wheat is not "collected," it is harvested. The reel, the part that spins on the front of the combine, does not cut the grain stalk. The cut stalks are not sucked into the combine, but are augered to the center of the header and into the combine. In most cases, wheat straw is not baled. If it is baled, it is not used as fodder as it has very little food value. It most definitely is not cut by the baler. Oversimplified vocabulary and inaccuracies keep this book from being even a marginal purchase.-Eldon Younce, formerly at Harper Elementary School, KS (c) Copyright 2010. 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 Kirkus Book Review
A vehicle-lover's dream come true, this meaty volume focuses on cars, bikes, trains, tractors, rescue vehicles, construction trucks and monster trucks. Each section (which is divided into subtopics, one per double-page spread) ends with an activity page encouraging readers to identify photos, answer comprehension-type questions and complete some creative challenges such as drawing an original vehicle and writing a story about it or making a collage. While a few terms may be new to American readers (train "wagons" instead of "cars" and "MPV" instead of "van"), for the most part the text is easy to read and understand. Brightly colored page edges draw eyes inward to the exciting full-color photos that fill the pages, many of them showing the featured vehicles in motion (and offering the occasional adult-pleasing tidbit, as with a potato harvester brand-named "Spudnik"). Both glossary and index are extensive; the youngest grease monkeys will feel completely fulfilled by the heft and breadth of this tome. (Nonfiction. 3-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
