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Summary
Summary
"Bad truck, bad guy; bad wave, bad bye . . ." A boy and his family are packing up their old home, and the morning feels scary and sad. But when he arrives at his new home, an evening of good byes awaits: bye to new friends, bye to glowing fireflies, bye to climbing trees. The New York Times bestselling author Deborah Underwood's spare text and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Jonathan Bean's lush, layered illustrations perfectly capture the complex emotions of moving day. The child-centric transition from dreary morning to cheerful evening comforts young readers facing big changes of their own.
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-A little boy is unhappy about a move to a new town, and as the family drives away from their familiar neighborhood, everyone in the car shares his sorrow. Slowly, the child's spirits lift, and he realizes that the new house may actually become a home. Concisely chosen, two-word phrases accompany the atmospheric illustrations, which aptly portray the youngster's changing emotions and tell the complete story. Drawn in ink with Prismacolor Tone, the collagelike pictures first show the boy and his dog struggling to prevent the movers from taking their possessions. The scenes of the family sadly waving good-bye to neighbors are shadowy and gray with overcast skies and a torrential downpour. Gradually the mood and palette brighten. At dusk, they drive into their new town. The movers unload the truck, and the boy explores his new room, spotting a friendly kid through the window. The new pals spend the evening catching fireflies and happily wave to each other as their mothers call them in for the night ("Good friend/Good bye"). Pair this engaging story about the uncertainties of moving with Phillis Gershator's Old House, New House (Marshall Cavendish, 2009).-Linda L. Walkins, Saint Joseph Preparatory High School, Boston, MA (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
It seems like there's no good to be found in moving away and leaving friends behind: "Bad truck/ Bad guy/ Bad wave/ Bad bye." But as a family makes their way across the country, a sense of adventure kicks in, "bad" is gradually supplanted by the possibilities of a "New town/ New park/ New street/ New bark," which in turn hold the promise of life being "good" again. Underwood's (The Quiet Book) ultra-succinct verse hits all the emotional marks that go along with a big transition. Bean (Building Our House), meanwhile, seems to take the topic to heart by moving in a new direction himself. He does wonderful things with light, starting with a gloomy rain scene and ending with soft, welcoming twilight. His colors-especially his reds-are gorgeously saturated, and often have a cellophane-like translucency. And his line is more geometric than before and lends the characters a look reminiscent of 1960s animation (maybe that's why Dad uses a paper map instead of GPS to navigate). Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Erin Murphy, Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Illustrator's agent: Anna Webman, Curtis Brown. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
An upset little boy sees nothing good about his family's move: "Bad truck / Bad guy / Bad wave / Bad bye." But the journey to and exploration of his new house are full of good experiences, including making a friend. Bean's dynamic ink and Prismacolor-tone illustrations creatively highlight the passage of time, and Underwood's simple rhymes skillfully address common emotions about moving. (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Underwood explores the range of emotions a child moving to a new place may feel with a spare, rhyming text that creates a framework for Bean's evocative illustrations. An overbearing gray pall pulls readers into a young boy's world of frustration, anger and hurt over moving. Pencil drawings with graphically stylized flat areas of color give detail to the four words of text per spread. "Bad mop / Bad blocks // Bad truck / Bad guy" (this last is the man loading the family's belongings into the van). A car chugs through a changing landscape as the boy throws a tantrum, sleeps, brightens and hesitates. Bean effectively layers tones and imagery to depict the passage of time and bring forth the immediacy of a situation. As the boy enters his new house at night, there's sensory overload, with light, shadows and the unfamiliar, creating an unsettling feel. But all ends well when a new acquaintance becomes a friend. Not every family or child may experience such negative emotions, but Underwood and Bean offer a potential tool for teaching empathy toward others who have made such a transition. This is a useful depiction of a family's physical move, but the strength is in the emotional journey that's expressed with a raw honesty. (Picture book. 4-8)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Told from a child's visceral, emotional perspective, this picture book depicts a family's long-distance move. Bad day / Bad box / Bad mop / Bad blocks / Bad truck / Bad guy / Bad wave / Bad bye. So begins Underwood's simple, understated text, which combines with Bean's expressive ink and watercolors. A boy sporting a red-striped shirt actively resists as movers (depicted only from the waist down) load boxes and belongings in the pouring rain. The stressed-out family drives off in their overstuffed car, but gradually the sun comes out and life begins to look better. After a refreshing night at a motel (Blue pool / Loud ice), they finally arrive at their reassuring destination: New kid / Good throw / New bugs / Good glow / Good tree / Good sky / Good friend / Good bye. Bean's artwork is a delight, fleshing out the story's outlines with interesting details that encourage further conversation. Stresses are realistically depicted, but there's never much doubt that this resilient family will adjust. Perfect for story hours or one-on-one sharing. Pair with Laurel Croza's I Know Here (2010) or Judith Viorst's Alexander, Who's Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move (1995).--Weisman, Kay Copyright 2014 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
AS AMERICA'S POSTWAR baby boomers grew up, dipped a toe or more in child psychology studies at college and started families of their own, children's book publishers took note of a new, pop cultural sensitivity to a wide array of developmentally-based childhood trials and tribulations. Picture books about potty training, tantrum throwing, the death of a pet and other emotionally charged topics proliferated, and were often shelved together at the library under the catchall heading of "bibliotherapy." Some authors explored these concerns more artfully than others. Judith Viorst ("Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day") and the late Charlotte Zolotow ("The Hating Book," "William's Doll") proved to be masters of the genre, their dry-eyed wit, empathic touch and story-telling prowess easily a match for their good intentions. Postwar Americans' extreme mobility was bound to make the angst associated with moving house another bibliotherapeutic flash point, and at least two such books of recent years remain standouts: Marjorie Weinman Sharmat's tall-tale-ish "Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport," illustrated by Byron Barton, which catalogs - then dispels - a child's wildly exaggerated fears about his future home; and Bernard Waber's soulful "Ira Says Goodbye," a deft unpacking of the contradictory, bittersweet emotions felt by best friends who are being forced to part. New picture books continue to play out variations on this endlessly affecting theme. In "From There to Here," the Canadian writer Laurel Croza gives readers a free-standing sequel to the story she first told in her award-winning debut picture book, "I Know Here." The young girl who, in the earlier book, first dreads and then prepares herself for her family's relocation from the near wilderness of Saskatchewan to Toronto, now takes the measure of that change from the vantage point of her new home and enlarged perspective. Through a series of sensory-steeped, one-on-one contrasts called out and pictured on opposing pages, the girl (who also narrates) comes to realize that "different" is not necessarily "better" or "worse," and that she herself has the power to make her new surroundings not only acceptable but also satisfying. There is a travelogue aspect to Matt James's intensely hued expressionist paintings of the story's two locales. We are given just a few telling glimpses of Saskatchewan, as a child might piece them together in memory - a moose here, a raging brush fire there - and of Toronto's particular mix of small-town-like neighborhoods and grander structures. It is not a portrait, in the usual sense, of either place, yet readers will feel these immersive, dreamlike images have taken them somewhere far from home. In contrast, we never learn the whereabouts of Posy Peyton, the outspoken young protagonist of "The Good-Pie Party" - not where she lives or where she and her family are bound for - only that Posy would much rather stay where she is. Why wouldn't she? She has not just one but two best friends, with whom she happily bakes and does acrobatics. As pictured in Kady MacDonald Denton's casually elegant drawings, she lives in a nice house with nice toys and a pair of attentive parents. At 6 or 7, Posy has spread her wings and boldly embraced the world of her peers only to get slapped with the news that life can intrude in uncontrollable ways. She can perhaps be forgiven a moment of magical thinking as she stubbornly insists that by not saying "goodbye" to her friends she can keep their perfect world intact a while longer. The corny title pun points to the resilient plan with which Posy rebounds: her idea to host a farewell "good-pie" party for which she and her friends and family will bake the goodies, then gather for one last time. The book's author, Liz Garton Scanlon, suggests that young readers in Posy's predicament may likewise find it helpful to harness the comforting power of ritual in some such way. For Posy, it proves to be an inspired move. Lulling rhymes and rhythms reinforce the ritual impact of reading aloud Deborah Underwood's "Bad Bye, Good Bye" to a toddler or preschooler with a disruptive move on the horizon. Punched out in two-word bullet points, the text swiftly traces an emotional arc from anger at the initial chaos of packing ("Bad day/Bad box/Bad mop/Bad blocks"), to fitful curiosity and growing openness to change, and culminating in the welcome feeling of once again having securely settled in somewhere. On the text side, the action is played out in the adjectives, as the opening volley of one "bad" followed by another yields to a more finely nuanced and upbeat commentary: "Nice dog/Huge map/Smooth glass/Long nap." But if Underwood has plotted a young child's emotional crossing, Jonathan Bean ("Building Our House") has fleshed it out in subtly tinted, kinetic landscape scenes that have the richness of visual texture and dramatic incident of an adventure worth taking. Readers get to go along for the ride. Bean plays a nimble game with three-point perspective in these restless, shape-shifting graphics, in several of which he also introduces a sketchy, double-exposure-style under-layer of drawing meant to suggest the frazzled, out-of-sorts condition of being between homes. Seconding Underwood, he reassures the reader who may fear otherwise that the sharp pangs of displacement and loss brought on by a move do not last forever, not when there is so much else all around to see and be curious about. Points of interest dot the passing landscape of the long drive: windmills, water towers, grazing herds, an old-fashioned diner and kitschy road sign extravaganzas. The family's overnight at a motel comes with a refreshing swim and, better yet from the boy's perspective, an ice cube machine whose "on" lever is just the right height for him to operate. Young children do not often get to decide where they live, but they are old pros at choosing their own adventure when and where they can. As an avalanche of ice cubes comes clattering down, the boy with the satisfied grin who made it happen looks to be halfway home. LEONARD S. MARCUS is the author, most recently, of "Randolph Caldecott: The Man Who Could Not Stop Drawing" and the curator of the New York Public Library exhibition "The ABC of It: Why Children's Books Matter."