Tag team-work

Polonius the Pit Pony

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Polonius the Pit Pony
Richard O’Neill and Feronia Parker-Thomas
Child’s Play

Having taught many Traveller children in various London schools, I was thrilled to have this new addition to Child’s Play’s books that feature travellers and their way of life.

This one tells of an erstwhile pit pony that escapes his underground life and gets in with a group of horses belonging to a Travelling family. Initially there’s some reluctance on their part to accept a pit pony: Grandad in particular wants to send him back to his fellow pit ponies but eventually he is persuaded to keep the animal and his granddaughter, young Lucretia volunteers to help look after the newcomer.

Polonius is quick to adapt to Travelling life and the children love him. Now all that Polonius wants is to be thought of as a hero.

One day his chance comes when the entire family has a large order of wooden stools to deliver to the docks in Daddo’s brand new truck, in time to be shipped to the USA the very next afternoon.

Next morning though, when they are due to set off, the family is engulfed in a thick blanket of fog that’s come down overnight. Could there be another way to make that important delivery? Perhaps with Grandad’s cart, so long as they can find an animal willing to brave the thick fog and lead the way to the docks.
It looks as though Polonious’s chance to thank his new family and be a hero has come …

Romany storyteller, Richard O’Neill introduces readers to a wonderful, hardworking, loving Traveller family. With a sprinkling of traveller dialect he roots the family in its culture, an early 20thC industrial countryside, although some of the words are still used today. Readers and listeners will be able to work out the gist of the meaning of the occasional unfamiliar words from the context.
Feronia Parker Thomas’ scenes of a bygone rural life are painted with delicacy and really show the warmth of family feeling for one another and for their animals.

The Big Red Rock

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The Big Red Rock
Jess Stockham
Child’s Play

The importance of play and collaboration are celebrated in a comical story about the large red rock of the title,
Bif, whose path is blocked by same, and assorted other monsters of various hues and talents.

‘Chomp, slurp’ goes Biff as he strolls merrily along consuming the contents of his breakfast bowl. So absorbed in his meal is he that he fails to see the large obstacle in his path until suddenly he can go no further. Shouting at the rock gets him nowhere so Bif tries a polite approach …

but to no avail.

Physical attempts at budging the object such as kicking and bashing it have no effect whatsoever and as Bif ponders his next move along comes Bop. He offers to enlist the help of the Big Red Rock Eater and off he goes to fetch her, wobbly tooth and all.

The lack of a firm bite means that mere nibbles are shifted. Bop though has other pals and each one has a go. Try as they might though, that Big Red Rock stays firm.

Time to play, announces Bif, giving up on rock-shifting attempts; and off they go to have fun until lo and behold, they find themselves on the other side of the rock. Bif has by now worked up an appetite once more.
I wonder where he left that breakfast bowl?

Jess Stockham’s assorted monsters are a willing, if inept crew and the sight of their ineffectual efforts is hilarious; I particularly chortled over that Green Rock Driller;

and the ‘Clanger-like’ Pink Rock Sucker. If you share this book with a class, they could have some fun inventing their own colourful Rock attacking monsters.

Mighty, Mighty Construction Site

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Mighty, Mighty Construction Site
Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld
Chronicle Books
It’s wake-up time at the construction site and the construction vehicles are back, to share their working day. Teamwork is needed for their new task – the erecting of an enormous building: but the trusty truck crew are ready. First comes Cement Mixer blasting his horn, calling to his fellow trucks.

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A ‘SUPERCREW’ is required to work on this job; so the fleet becomes ten. Small and quick Skid Steer partners big Bulldozer working side by side to clear the way with Skid performing some of her super spins.
Excavator and Backhoe make another duo, the former digging the trenches, the latter putting the drainage pipes  in place and then both covering them, the process being repeated  – over and over …
The work continues apace with Crane Truck, Flatbed Truck, Front-End Loader, Dump Truck and Pumper

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all playing vital roles until finally, it’s job done! (The building itself stands out starkly in its setting: its shape and transparent nature suggests it is made largely of glass: an interesting talking point.)

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Now, the sun has gone, the moon is out and the trucks wend their weary way back to sleep. ‘Shh … goodnight!’
Like its predecessor, Rinker’s rhyming text reads aloud well as it details the various roles of the team members – it’s great to see how the trucks work in co-operation – and Lichtenheld’s robust, action-packed illustrations (alternating spreads and panels) help pace the rhyme. There’s so much to enjoy and discuss and after a reading or two (or more I suspect) this story could be turned into a movement session. Children can use their bodies to emulate the truck actions adding appropriate sound effects too.

Also just out is an unabridged board book edition of the predecessor:

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Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site
Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld
Chronicle Books
There’s such a lovely rhythmic feel to this bedtime tale that features five large machines, which, on the first spread, are still hard at work making a road and constructing a building. A turn of the page shows the same vehicles with one task each to complete before their day’s work is done.
‘Shh … goodnight, Crane Truck, goodnight.’ One by one, Cement Mixer, Dump Truck, Bulldozer and Excavator each completes its work and is duly bid goodnight in similar fashion, the repetition helping to add to the sleepy ambiance of the telling. Earthy hues at sundown, and indigo night shades, are just right for Lichtenheld’s scenes, which are full of gentle visual humour.

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