Tractor Day - Hardcover

Ransom, Candice F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802780903 ISBN 13: 9780802780904

Publisher: Walker Childrens, 2007

Synopsis

Tractor naps.
Time to plow.
Cover off.
Wake up now!

Climb aboard the big red tractor. It's time to get the farm ready for spring. Raking, plowing, and planting the fields is hard work. But working together makes everything more fun.

Sitting atop such a powerful machine is so exciting--especially while wrapped safely in Daddy's arms. Everybody has to pitch in on a family farm.
Let's get to work!

About this title

About the Author

Candice Ransom grew up slopping hogs and swatting gnats. Tractor Day was inspired by her stepfather, who would let her ride with him in a cantankerous tractor that dug up many things, including Civil War bullets and quartz arrowheads. Candice is the author of more than 100 books for young readers, including many volumes of The Boxcar Children and Walker & Company's Liberty Street and The Promise Quilt. She holds an MFA in writing for children from Vermont College and lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia with her husband, Frank, and their four cats. Visit her Web site at www.candiceransom.com.

Laura Bryant is the illustrator of many books for young readers, including God Gave Us You. She lives in a converted farmhouse in the Shenandoah Mountains of West Virginia, where her neighbors, who work on family farms, helped her with Tractor Day. She says, "Nothing is sweeter than the sound of an old tractor chugging down the road." Visit her Web site at www.laurabryant.com.

Reviews

PreS—Spring has arrived, and it's time to till the field. "Tractor naps./Time to plow./Cover off./Wake up now!" The short and snappy rhyming text takes readers through a day as a father and his daughter board the tractor ("Leather seat./Noisy gears./Up we go!/Daddy steers") and get to work. With just four quick lines per page, the small field is done in no time. Double-page watercolor illustrations reflect the lilting rhythm of the narrative. Daddy and his girl occupy the forefront, but Mama and baby are seen in the background as they do their own chores, hanging the wash, feeding the pigs, taking lunch to the field. The mother's dress and kerchief are sweetly reminiscent of an earlier time. The antics of a trio of crows and a frisky dog add humor, and children will find additional pictorial stories on every page. With so much to capture their attention—both auditory and visual—youngsters will delight in this fresh seasonal story. A great choice for reading aloud or sharing one-on-one.—Carolyn Janssen, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This pleasant, highly romanticized vision of farm life follows the members of a farm family from dawn to dusk as they work together to plant a field. The focus is on a big red tractor as it is driven back and forth throughout the day. What makes this particularly appealing is that the young girl in the family gets to ride the tractor with her father all day long. Several peripheral characters--the mother, the baby, the family dog, a flock of crows, and various farm animals--create added interest with their various activities. Muted watercolor illustrations on double-page spreads feature cozy scenes in which everyone (and everything) appears happy to be working. The simple rhyming text, with four lines per page and two to three words per line, is easy enough for beginning readers and can be dramatized for a lively read-aloud. Life on the farm never looked so good. Randall Enos
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Childrens
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802780903
• ISBN 13: 9780802780904
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Bryant Laura J.
• Number of pages: 32