Building with Dad: Read Aloud Grade K (Journeys) - Softcover

Reading

Softcover

ISBN 10: 054701015X ISBN 13: 9780547010151

Publisher: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN, 2009

Synopsis

A little boy joins his father at a construction site.

Dad’s helping to build a new school, and he takes his son to watch its progress. They see lots of machines at work: a dump truck, a backhoe, an earthmover, a giant grader, a steamroller, a cement mixer, a crane, and more. Finally, the school is finished—just in time for the first day. Bill Thomson’s exquisite illustrations, rendered in acrylic paint and colored pencils, are delivered in a double-spread vertical format, which, when the book is turned sideways, bring this building experience to life with unprecedented dramatic perspective.

About this title

About the Author

Carol Nevius lives in Coral Springs Florida, with her husband, Hugh, and their three children. She teaches Language Arts at Westglades Middle School.

Bill Thomson lives in Southington, Connecticut, with his wife, Diann, and their three sons. He is Assistant Professor of Illustration at the University of Hartford.

Reviews

PreSchool-Grade 2–In spare, rhyming text, a boy and his father, a builder, explore the site of the child's new school. Wearing hard hats, they watch throughout the year as the bulldozer clears the field and the cement mixer pours the foundation, etc., until the building is ready for the first day of classes. Bold acrylic and colored-pencil pictures give the oversize book great appeal–it opens from the bottom up, and the striking illustrations are done from the boy's perspective looking up at the huge machines. The boy concludes, And when I'm a grown-up, I hope I will be/a builder like Dad with a helper like me! The book will be enthusiastically welcomed by youngsters fascinated with construction and big machines. It is also an engaging father/son story.–Judith Constantinides, formerly at East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library, LA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The creators of Karate Hour (2004) offer another energetic picture book with visual punch. Speaking in rhyming couplets, a young boy describes trips with his contractor dad to the site where a new school is being constructed. The use of rhyme feels too constraining, and some lines are clunkers: "The teachers have meetings. Dad's last workers rush. / Our waxed floors are gleaming. The toilets all flush." The pictures, though, have instant appeal. As in Karate, the spreads spill down the page vertically, rather than horizontally, for maximum impact. This time, however, Thomson uses full color, and his photo-realistic paintings bring viewers close up to, sometimes even under, giant machines that scoop dirt, dump gravel, and unload a river of cement seemingly right into the viewer's lap. Pair this with Kate Banks' The Night Worker (2000) and the titles listed in the bibliography "The Art of Construction," in the December 15, 2000, issue of Booklist.Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 054701015X
• ISBN 13: 9780547010151
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32