Bound To Stay Bound

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Booklist - 12/01/2009 Junior racing fans will get a vicarious thrill with this story of a tiny driver who dares to burn rubber with the big boys. The story has two halves: the construction of the hot rod and the big race. The hamster—a tiny orange puffball usually found levitating with glee and shouting stuff like “Now I’m ready to ROLL!”—begins at the local scrap heap, where a junkyard dog (and his staff of rats) assists in constructing the perfect racer. The rhyming scheme is consistent: “Old car, new car, shiny painted blue car; / Rust car, clean car, itty-bitty green car.” Then the text involves the reader: “Which would you choose?” Usually the right answer can be sussed out; for example, that green car is just the size for a three-inch-tall driver. Once wheeled and oiled (and flame-painted, too), it’s off to the track, where the racing rodent wins and then has to make the toughest choice of all: which trophy to take. Anderson’s acrylics are boisterously large, colorful, and off-kilter—just like his swaggering protagonist. - Copyright 2009 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 01/01/2010 PreS-Gr 1— Kids will be in the driver's seat, bonding with the hot-rod hamster as he sallies forth into a bulldog's junkyard to put together his very own race car. It's a dog's race, though, and children will sympathize with the small creature's struggle to compete with bigger, gruffer opponents and cheer him on to the finish line. Close-ups of the mud-streaked track in the bold-stroked, textured acrylics allow readers to see the competition at eye-level with the hamster (and axis-level with the other contenders). But the action builds up even before the engines start, and young readers will love helping the irrepressible hamster build his dream car. Their hands will dart up immediately when they hear the refrain, "Which one would you choose?" illustrated with comic-style illustrations of the myriad choices of cars, tires, parts, and flames, and they'll become hot-rod designers along with Hamster. If Bob Kolar's Racer Dogs (Dutton) or Brian Floca's The Racecar Alphabet (S & S, both 2003) are worn, torn, and vroom-vroomed in your library, add this one to the lot.—Sara Paulson-Yarovoy, American Sign Language and English Lower School PS 347, New York City - Copyright 2010 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 05/01/2010 An ambitious hamster prepares himself for an upcoming hot-rod race, starting with that most important of elements: the hot rod. At the junkyard, he selects a hamster-sized chassis, new tires and wheels (“I want to burn rubber!”), an engine, and, of course, a flame decal for the front. Then he’s off to the races, competing with daredevil dogs in their comparatively huge rides, but it’s the Hamster Hot Rod that earns the checkered flag and trophies. The story is a little unfocused, bouncing between rhymed narrative and speech-bubble dialogue, car prep and car race, but it’s got a pleasingly pulsating urgency running through it, especially in the hamster’s excited exclamations. The notion of putting a car together from junkyard parts and then darting ahead of the much bigger favorites to hit the finish line first is serious fantasy fodder, and the opportunity to contemplate the various automotive possibilities (“Which would you choose?” the text invitingly inquires at each step) just ramps up the daydreaming. Illustratively, our tiny hero steals the show as well as the race; his guileless glee and manic zeal are comic and irresistible (a hamster miming a firm grasp on an invisible steering wheel proves to be a hilarious as well as novel sight), and it’s understandable that he’s won the loyalty of the bulldog junkyard proprietor and his ratty assistants. The robust solidity and touch of whimsy in the acrylic art gives the cartoonish style an endearing resemblance to the stop-motion animation work of Nick Park (creator of Wallace and Gromit); the compositions niftily employ perspectives that emphasize the size differences and deftly manage to keep the energy level high and the colors loud without descending into cacophony. Go, Dog, Go! is going down. DS - Copyright 2010 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

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