Your little one isn’t exactly quiet, is she? You can hear her stomping to the bathroom to brush her teeth, rummaging around for her favorite toy, and clomping out the door.
In the new book “A Very, Very Noisy Tractor” by Mar Pavin and Novila Uyá, everybody in the area knows who’s coming down the road.
It was a quiet day in the country, when a lady with a HUGE hairdo came putt-putting down the road on a tractor. A pizza delivery boy heard her coming and hollered, “Ladies with crazy hairdos shouldn’t drive tractors,” but she never heard it, because the tractor was too noisy.
A few miles later, someone with thick glasses shouted, “Ladies with glasses shouldn’t drive tractors!” but the lady on the tractor (who wore thick glasses, too) never heard it because the tractor was too loud.
Did we say that the lady on the tractor was wearing a raincoat? She was, and a mailman yelled that ladies wearing raincoats shouldn’t be allowed on tractors. Of course, the lady on the tractor didn’t hear him.
Soon, she pulled off the road and headed for a village filled with flowers and happy colors. But the villagers weren’t so happy — they shouted at the lady, too, and said that people like her shouldn’t drive tractors.
But a young boy on the side of the road was curious, because he hoped to have a tractor just like that one someday. He had a few questions and the lady answered him, but she couldn’t stay long. Her husband — who was a very good cook — had dinner waiting for her, so she jumped on the tractor and cha-chugged off down the road.
At the end of the road, there was a man with a huge moustache and a huge smile. He didn’t care what the lady wore or what colors she had on. The little girl with him didn’t care what the lady on the tractor carried, either.
They saw what they saw, and it was love.
It’s hard not to be totally charmed by “A Very, Very Noisy Tractor,” which was translated from Spanish into English. It’s cute, filled with positivity, and is curiously inspirational.
It’s also a little odd: adult sensibilities might notice that authors Mar Pavin and Nivola Uyá seem to end their book twice — but turn the page, and there’s plenty of story left. That’s not bad, from a kid’s point-of-view, but it’s something for parents to remember as their read-aloud starts to wind down.
Still, the good here vastly outweighs that relatively minor quirk: kids will love the humor and the appealing characters. Adults will enjoy the dream-affirming message inside, and the illustrations are absolutely irresistible. Three to 7 year olds will shout about “A Very, Very Noisy Tractor.”
“A Very, Very Noisy Tractor,” by Mar Pavin and Nivola Uya [28 pages, 2013, $15.95].
Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old, and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill with two dogs and 12,000 books.
