Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. 4-8)Ĭontinuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long ( The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. Heartbreaking, witty and filled with hope, this will perhaps rings most true with children whose parents have recently suffered a loss.
The sophisticated palette creates a consistency across the pages, and the artwork, meticulously constructed and edited with a uniquely minimalist aesthetic, is signature Jeffers. Tender illustrations, dense with detail when the protagonist’s imagination is thriving and sparse when her heart is disembodied, deftly delineate the character’s emotional state. The author beautifully weaves themes of love, loss and healing into a stirring story. Emotions, thoughts and memories pour forth, and the chair is empty no longer. Grief-stricken, the girl places her heart in a bottle for safekeeping, but “in truth, nothing was the same,” and so it remains into adulthood until someone “smaller and still curious about the world” finds the key to unlock her heart. Then-an empty chair, a darkened room, a waiting child. Expansive environments illuminate the deep and abiding bond between child and elder. “Once there was a girl, much like any other,” curious and full of wonder able to explore and discover because the man was there.
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