Reviews for Itty and Bitty: On the Road

The average rating for Itty and Bitty: On the Road based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-02-03 00:00:00 Mauro Andres This is a re-illustrated version of a largely forgotten Margaret Wise Brown book. If you google you can find one or two of the original images floating around, if you're curious. In THIS version, the second little train (as you can see on the cover) is a toy train. The writing is simply repetitive, just right for little children, and the connection between what the real train is doing and what the toy train is doing is sweet and imaginative. Two things bugged me, one very minor and one a little more seriously. Firstly, although the trains are going "to the west", if you were to look at a map, with North at the top (as is typical), west is to the left... not the right. Never Eat Shredded Wheat, as I taught my nieces, and the compass rose says "WE". Not, heaven forbid, "EW!" So I keep looking at the pictures thinking "But... surely that's EAST!" I'm aware that this is a stupid thing to complain about, I know it's silly, and I haven't taken off any stars for it or anything. It just bugged me and I had to let it out. Please forgive me :) The other, slightly more serious bit, is in this line: "The moon shone down on a gleaming track / And the two little trains going West; / And they hurried along and heard the song / Of a black man singing in the West." The illustration is of the toy train resting by a radio, and opposite it is an image of the (black) man in the moon singing. Now, you see the bit of the problem? Nowadays it's a bit... awkward to just randomly mention somebody's race unless it's, well, necessary. "Which one of those guys in the picture is Bob, your boyfriend?" "Oh... well, the black one, everybody else is white." It's just kinda weird... it's not like I'd randomly say "The red-haired man singing" or anything like that. As it happens, I have a few different thoughts about this, and they don't all agree. 1. The text of this book was written in a different era. While I normally find the argument "We can't judge books by our modern standards" to be tiresome (unless you have a time machine, you're not giving the book to a child 50 years ago, so why is it wrong to take modern standards and sensibilities into account when purchasing?), but the text and (modern) illustration here aren't especially offensive. They mention the man's race, they don't demonize or mock it in any way. 2. I'm very interested in the research which says that children pick up racist attitudes more quickly if we do NOT talk about it. Apparently, since children aren't actually stupid, when they see that other people have skin a different color than their own, they wonder about it. But when their questions are met with embarrassment and attempts to quiet them, and when no explanation is ever given, they come to their own conclusions about skin color... often conclusions we'd rather they hadn't reached. We try not to talk about race in order to be polite, but instead we may send the message that there's something shameful or wrong about being not-like-us... especially if we have few friends outside our own ethnic group. There have actually been a few compelling studies among this line suggesting that the best thing to do IS to talk about race, but in a matter-of-fact way that's not, well, racist. Which doesn't mean going around pointing to people and going "Look! She's BLACK! Wow!", but it does mean that maybe skipping over that one word and hoping your kid doesn't learn to read quicker than they can ask you why you skip that one word is the best bet. 3. On the third hand... it's just kinda weird to mention randomly that somebody is black! Perhaps in the context it was understood that he was singing a type of music that was primarily part of black culture? I don't know. So, as you see, I'm mostly on the side of "In this particular instance, it's no big deal", but I appreciate that some people will have reservations about it, and I understand that.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-10-30 00:00:00 Ina Ot Two Little Trains BY Margaret Wise Brown Starts with about the author and her works and why she wrote them. Listened to this story but I can imagine all the colorful pictures making the pages move. Story of two train one is heading west. Tells about the trains and the differences. Talks about what they do at the mountain and have to climb it and go through the mountain. Many other things they had to cross. Love how one of the trains is a play train in a tub where the child has used a lot of his toys and furniture in his house where the other train was on the same track. I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).