![]() ![]() ![]() (Safety first, but this girl is not letting that helmet cramp her style.) When the two return home, Mom and younger brother join them for a family bike ride, little man (with dreads that match Dad’s) riding in a sidecar and the dog running happily alongside. ![]() However, the crowning elaboration on the text is the art’s celebration of Black hair: Dad, wearing a T-shirt with the Pan-African flag colors, sports high-top dreads, a fade, and a chin-strap goatee, while the girl’s double Afro puffs proudly poof out below her bike helmet. Illustrations extend the appealing story by including a supportive dog who pulls twigs off the bike after the crash, wags its tail encouragingly as the girl considers getting back on, and gives her a big wet kiss at the end. Soon enough comes the inevitable wobbliness and first fall (with, luckily, a soft landing in some leafy shrubbery), but Dad is there to help: “Hug-cried / Tears dried / Decide…” Will she get back on? Dad wisely lets her think about it, then “Push, goodbyed / Pump, FLY! / What pride!” Bolling’s brief and inventive rhyming text perfectly conveys the action and emotions involved in an inaugural bike ride. ![]() by Kaylani JuanitaĪ little girl learns to ride a bike in her suburban Bay Area neighborhood, her father by her side until off she goes on her own. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |