Gets to Work! (A Tinyville Town Book)

July 25, 2016
Biggs kicks off the Tinyville Town series, focusing on hard-working, civic-minded folks, from the police officer to the trash collectors, who share their expertise to make a city work. This first entry introduces the setting and cast through a problem that needs solving: a traffic jam (“The baker can’t open his bakery. And the bus driver can’t get to the bus stop”). Biggs breaks the trouble down with admirable clarity, providing a backstory (“The old bridge was built when Tinyville Town was much smaller,” says the town engineer) and showing how a design must reflect a variety of needs (the city planner wants a bridge that can anticipate future growth, and the major wants a structure that’s “beautiful to look at”). For construction fans, there are three detailed spreads devoted to the bridge’s creation. The visuals are more stylized than in Biggs’s Everything Goes series—while Tinyville Town is diverse, everyone has the same toylike body shape—but the mood is similarly exuberant and attentive to detail. And the can-do spirit is off the charts. Two Tinyville Town board books are available simultaneously. Ages 3–5. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House.

July 15, 2016
In Tinyville Town, everyone's got a job to do!Bakers bake. Bus drivers drive. Garbage collectors collect the garbage. But one day the garbage goes uncollected, the bakery doesn't open on time, and the bus is late. Mayor Murphy (a black man whose job it is to solve problems) must find out what's wrong. The problem is no one can get into Tinyville Town because there's a traffic jam on the bridge that crosses the river. Tinyville Town needs a bigger bridge! With the help of the engineer and the city planner, Mayor Murphy plans a beautiful new bridge. Excavators dig, crane operators move huge blocks, and iron workers install arches. When the bridge is done, the whole town parades across; Hooray! Author and illustrator Biggs offers this companion to his career-centered Tinyville Town board-book series. The diverse (by the shades of their skin) people of Tinyville Town fill jobs with a healthy disregard for strict adherence to gender roles in this big, bright, and friendly construction tale. Simple text takes readers from the discovery of an issue to the creation of the solution with the help of Biggs' signature ink-and-pencil illustrations colored in Photoshop. A crowd pleaser just about everywhere, no matter the size of the city, village, or town. (Picture book. 3-7)

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October 1, 2016

PreS-Gr 1-Tinyville Town is a happy place where everybody has a job to do and does it well. From the baker to the bus driver, people take pride in their work, and the town runs smoothly. When a traffic jam stops the orderly flow of their day, the townspeople realize that they need a new bridge. The mayor agrees and declares that this new bridge will be bigger, stronger, and more beautiful than the first. Using broad and colorful cartoon art, the story chronicles what it takes to complete such a project. Charming spreads of construction workers and vehicles fill the book with just enough detail to be interesting while not getting overcrowded. The endpapers display a bird's-eye view of the town and pictures of all the workers for readers to have fun finding. This is the first book about Tinyville Town by the creator of the popular "Everything Goes" series, and children who enjoyed the earlier titles will gravitate to this one. VERDICT With a setting reminiscent of Richard Scarry's Busytown, this offering will be a hit with future city planners and engineers and all children who like to know how things work. Recommended for purchase.-Amy Nolan, St. Joseph Public Library, MI

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