The Lot At the End of My Block
As the architects of this sunny, House That Jack Built-style cumulative rhyming tale, Lewis (Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo) and Cartwright (Mr. Potter's Pigeon) know what their readers want: construction, and lots of it. The narrator is a lucky boy who watches as an empty lot becomes a building site. The site then ends up being an apartment complex that houses a new friend. Lewis's rhymes stack up cleanly, with the evenness of well-laid bricks: "This is the shovel that backs with a beep/ and fills the dump truck with dirt from the heap/ on the side of the pit, all dusty and deep,/ that I saw through the hole/ that was made in the wall/ that was built by the workmen/ who came to the lot/ at the end of my block." With their bold geometry and sky-bright colors, Cartwright's pictures conjure the graphics of a billboard, emphasizing the site's interplay of curves and lines. They also pack in enough dirt and suggest enough detailing to satisfy young construction connoisseurs. The perpetual smiles on the four workers (all male) should strike readers as wholly appropriate as well--after all, for this book's fans, these men have the best job in the world. Ages 3-6.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.