Red Light, Green Light

Title: Red Light, Green Light
Author: Anastasia Suen
Illustrated: Ken Wilson-Max
Published: Gulliver Books (Harcourt Inc) San Diego, California
Date:2005
Summary: A young boy creates an imaginary world filled with zooming cars, flashing traffic lights, and racing fire engines.
Age Level: 2-5 (Primary)
Strengths: I like how the illustrator used acrylic paint on paper, because it looks as if a child had painted it (with the solid colors and the good lines on the different objects). It gives the reader a sense of what the stoyr will be about and whose perspective it will be told in (in this case, the child). I also love how the little boy used different things in order to make a city of his own. He was very creative by using his pencil as the road, stuffed animals and plastic toys as people walking across the streets, plastic cars as if they were the real things, and the books and boxes he put up as buildings. One shot of a certain picture will take up an entire two pages, which is good because I don't think the reader would be able to see a lot of the scenary if it was only on one page. It's the artwork that stands out, but the text also has a part in the story. The text is big enough so the readers will see it, but not too big because oltherwise, it would distract the reader from the pictures and I think the main purpose is to see the pictures. However, I do like the text and its rhyming and I like how the author splits apart the text so the rhyming comes after every other page.
Concerns: I have no concerns.
Comments: I thought this was a cute book and shows what one boy imagines when he thinks about cars and the roads. Children think in different, but unique ways, and I think this story gives a good impression of using and expanding your imagination. I think it is a good learning book for not only rhyming, but also about how cars, driving and how the roadway works (except there are no stuffed animals, or toys on the real roadways).