![]() ![]() ![]() 5-9)Ĭontinuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long ( The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. Wonderful squiggly line, patches of green and brown, gold and blue and fabulous use of negative white space make this a joy to reread. The resolutely genderless depiction of the child may have some readers gasping at the end and going back to the beginning-not a bad outcome at all. So do the kid and the puppy, and the end finds a bird dropping a seed on the dog’s offspring’s head and. Nightmares cause the child to submit to shearing, however, after which pup and child plant the sapling. ![]() But the little plant wilts! An umbrella keeps the sun off, then child and pup try to water it (the bedtime shower works best). A bird drops a seed, which begins to grow in the child’s hair. The child, however, has other ideas and runs out to frolic in the grass with an equally bouncy puppy. A mop-headed child faces a momlike figure with scissors in her hands-definitely time for a haircut. A curious, curiously subversive and very pretty wordless Australian import. ![]()
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