Everything Goes: On Land



Except for the Chevy Nova.  Ya feel me Mexico?! 

THREE PROS
*The whole thing has a bit of a Where's Waldo? flair to it, but instead of looking for one guy in a striped shirt, it makes you want to soak up every tiny detail on each page  
*The handful of vehicle cross-section pages are not only informative but also serve as excellent palate-cleansers between subsets of modes of transport
*Things the jacket designer did that would often go unnoticed stood out to me on this effort -- so kudos to you Dana Fritts for being the first jacket designer to receive a mention on KBR 

THREE CONS 
*Even with all of the distractions provided by Brian Biggs' drawings, there's just no hiding the fact that the text is kind of stale outside of the funny one-liners from bit players 
*How is there no real mention of traffic (maybe I missed it) in a city with roughly four pixels of open road 
*Worst limo ever -- I thought it was a poorly drawn hearse at first, and then when I saw the label I tried to readjust but just couldn't

ONE DAD'S OPINION
I
llustrator Biggs became an author when he created this title in 2011, his first attempt at doing everything on his own.  And while he still has a ways to go on the writing side, the sum total of all his talents is well worth a purchase in this case.  There's just so much to look at, I have to say that this might be the first time I did not accuse a back cover of puffery for claiming that the book would provide "hours of fun."  With all of that fun plus a fair amount of learning crammed in to boot, I feel okay elevating what could be seen as a Borrow to Buy status.  Moms of the world, take note:  my wife disagrees with my assessment of this book, since she can't get past EGOL's struggle with readability.  Since we have a bit of split decision here (although I have the tie-breaking vote), I'll put a caveat on my recommendation and ask that you only Buy it in person, and not online, so that you can make sure it's something you deem worthy of the $15 expenditure!    

BUY / Borrow / Donate / Destroy



1 comment:

Unknown said...

What a fun site! As the mom of two boys and a daughter, I can say the one thing I found, especially with the boys was that anything with the word "Goes" and pictures of cars was usually worth a look. Since my youngest is 6 this book looks a little to young for my guys, but I would totally check it out for my two nephews, 1 & 3. Thanks for the tip! Great to find you on voiceBoks. I look forward to reading more reviews! Thanks!