Review by Booklist Review
It might be a while before young readers of this book get around to Jack Kerouac's On the Road, but Burleigh's ode perfectly captures Kerouac's roaming, optimistic spirit. Though proportioned like a human, our Jack has the head of a rabbit, the kind of fast, free animal that Kerouac probably envied. Rabbit Jack journeys from New York to San Francisco, strolling, hitching, and hopping trains: Gaze up at glass and steel but yo / There's lots more landscape yet. / The road's still calling, 'Jack Jack Jack,' / And so you gotta get. City and town names dot the rhyming stanzas Philly, Pittsburgh, Oskaloosa, Oxford Junction creating a gently dizzying feel, as if the reader is just as happily lost as Jack. MacDonald's golden-hued watercolors and pencil crayons present 1940s America as something of a paradise, with the neon diner signs and jazz clubs just as beautiful as the rolling hills and majestic mountains it's all part of Jack's schoolhouse-on-the-move. An old-fashioned typewriter font caps off this warm, inviting, and buoyant package.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
MacDonald (Grumpy Grandpa) draws a ramblin' man-well, a ramblin' rabbit-who crosses the country from New York City to the Golden Gate, hitching rides, sleeping in haylofts, and lingering in diners. "Lone Tree, Newton, Oskaloosa,/ Redfield, Poplar Bluff,/ A thousand names fly by-but Jack,/ There'll never be enough." Jack is modeled on Jack Kerouac; while he has long, furry ears and an overbite, he also has blue jeans, a snowy white T-shirt, and a story printed in typewritten letters. MacDonald's nostalgia presents a younger, gentler America; a blue jay follows Jack everywhere he goes, the sun always shines, the land is quilted in gentle folds, and pickup trucks bump along the highway. Burleigh (The Adventures of Mark Twain by Huckleberry Finn) has hipster jargon down: "Go bopping down South Halsted Street./ Where's the action? What's the news?/ Fill the jukebox up with dimes,/ Slip on your dancin' shoes"-but it comes across as starry-eyed, not rebellious. It's not a biography or an introduction to Kerouac's work; instead, it's a tribute to his spirit and his era. Ages 4-8. Illustrator's agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 3 Up-Jack Kerouac's spirit and the feel of America in the 1950s are evoked through a "wanderlusting" hare named Jack. Bebop rhythms and playful rhymes include lines like, "A farm, a twinkling light,/While the moon plays whoopsie-doopsie/With the blackness of the night." Jack travels from New York City through the Midwest, visiting cornfields, a carnival, then Mount Rushmore and a northern mountaintop. He celebrates the desert and San Francisco's sites: "There's just one rule/For guys like you, Jack:/Never, never stop." This journey can enhance a cross-country geography lesson, but some vernacular will need explanation, including "jukebox" and "shut-eye." Certain phrases demand mature readers: "money's only something, Jack,/That gets you in a rut." MacDonald's trademark golds wash the spot-on retro scenes of vintage cars, rolled-up blue jeans, Moms in aprons, and wide-open spaces. Boomers will enjoy this glimpse into mid-20th century America, but it has limited child appeal.-Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA (c) Copyright 2012. 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
What could have been straight nonfiction takes on a fanciful air when Jack Kerouac is rendered more jack rabbit than man. In an effort to make the life of Jack comprehensible to elementary-age children, Burleigh's rhyming text does double duty as both biographical ode to a great writer and paean to the country he loved. "Hey, Jack! Skedaddle! Gotta hop! / Vamoose! Take off and go! / Nose is itching, ears are twitching, / Come on! Get with the flow!" Feeling the urge to travel, Jack sets off from New York City to the countryside, seeing people, enjoying the road and heading westward all the while. With a ubiquitous blue jay companion, this Jack is a swell sport fully capable of fueling readers' desires to see the world as well. Only sometimes does the book's internal logic go awry, as when the bunnified beat passes the very human heads of Mount Rushmore. While Burleigh sells Jack's wayward spirit, MacDonald works to capture 1950s America to a tee. And though these bunny characters seem to be human from the neck down, readers will not fault the artist this child-friendly touch. Appropriately for the audience, this charmer invokes the man's spirit rather than his biography, effectively communicating the excitement of the road he held so dear. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
