★ 03/16/2015
This joyful book explores the power of roads to transport, connect, entertain, enlighten, and return adventurers home. Miller's (Sophie's Squash) buoyant rhymes follow a bicycling rabbit along country, seaside, city, and mountain roads. What makes the tacit invitation to ride along irresistible are Wheeler's (The Grudge Keeper) sprawling, bustling landscapes, which encourage readers to imagine stories within the story. Saturated with glowing golden tones, the mixed-media pictures feature fantastical architectural flourishes while highlighting the rabbit's propensity for making friends. After he loads an owl onto his bike, they climb aboard a VW bus jammed with animal passengers to continue their tour, enjoying what each stop has to offer (a tea party in a tree house, a hike up a mountain) and each other's company. Miller's gentle urging to chart new courses ("If you yearn for the ocean or wish for a stream,/ roads bring you closer to reaching your dream") gives this lovely offering appeal both as an inspirational gift book and as a bedtime tale. Ages 3–6. Author's agent: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Illustrator's agent: Jennifer Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary Agency. (Apr.)
01/01/2015
K-Gr 2—The road rises up to meet a bicycle-riding rabbit throughout this travelogue written by the author of Sophie's Squash (Random, 2013). Unless there are a lot of big vehicles, visual subplots, or a compelling narrative arc, the metaphorical use of roads easily becomes too abstract for young children—and clichéd. Miller employs singsong verses throughout, preceded by the word roads, an ellipsis, and a verb, e.g., "Roads…zoom./Beneath city buildings that tower on high,/twinkling like stars/in the dark velvet sky/Racing past signs./Reflecting their light./Zigging and zagging./Turn left. Then turn right." These constructions prove confusing, as it isn't clear whether it's the buildings or the roads that are "twinkling" and "racing." The rabbit and an owl interact with an assortment of anthropomorphized creatures as the road bends, merges, remembers, and ultimately returns home. Wheeler's watercolor and gouache scenes are defined with delicate ink lines. Pink and peach are the predominant colors of the sky, sea, trees and landscape. This palette and the settings—a paddle boat turned restaurant, a turreted tree house, a walled city hosting a carnival—create an exotic atmosphere. The characters, however, are tourists without a tale. Perhaps it works best as a candidate for a graduation present. —Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library
★ 2015-02-03
A rabbit's cross-country bike excursion introduces the open road, its free-wheeling, giddy freedom, and its role in connecting travelers to an ever changing landscape of new friends and communities. The rise and fall of recurring rhyme mimics the anticipated twists and turns of a road while explaining what roads do. Miller's verse, infused with musical momentum, communicates the emotional arch of a journey with beautiful brevity: "Clinging to cliffs. / Chasing a cloud. / Reaching the top, / tired but proud." The rabbit's road coils through an animal kingdom of forests, treehouses, country cottages, bustling seaside villages, glimmering cities and mountain overlooks. The sunshine-hued, delicate artwork embraces both the panoramic vastness of the countryside and the definitive details nestled in its valleys, meadows, towns and treetops. Each double-page spread invites readers to stop and look closely at the lichen hugging the tree, the bending roses, the bouncing musicians, the twinkling carnival, the romantic dinner parties, the ships' many sails, the cactus' sharp needles, the wisps of clouds on a mountain ridge. The rabbit rolls on, picking up buddies and smiling at clusters of congregating critters the whole way. Children, thanks to captivating artwork and rhyme, will want nothing more than to ride his handlebars, bouncing and merry. At the mountain's summit, young readers will glow with the understanding that roads connect more than places—and the assurance they can retrace this reading journey nightly. (Picture book. 3-8)
* "Captivating artwork and rhyme."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
* "This lovely offering appeal[s] both as an inspirational gift book and as a bedtime tale."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
"There is so much to see and discover that the reader will spend extra time exploring each detailed page...a sweet, beautifully illustrated book about exploring one's world but knowing you can always go home."—School Library Connection
"All is warmth and pleasure in this adventure, and the best is, of course, the ability to go home."—Booklist
