Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Just as an out-of-date but functional phone booth proved its worth in Ackerman and Dalton's The Lonely Phone Booth, a typewriter, gathering dust in the attic, comes to the rescue when a family's computer conks out. Ackerman's story takes a while to get rolling as he traces the typewriter's lineage ("Its owner, a young woman named Pearl, used it to type pamphlets for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.") and introduces a boy named Pablo (Pearl's grandson) and his mixed-race family. Dalton's illustrations feature simple, flattened shapes that feel in keeping with the old-meets-new vibe, and the story unfolds in typewritten-looking text, appropriately enough. Ages 6-9. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-4-Though many writers may wax nostalgic about the "thunk" sound of a typewriter carriage return, the premise that elementary school-aged Pablo's parents are of that generation makes this whole endeavor implausible. When Pablo's parents' computer breaks the night he needs to write a report about penguins, his mother pulls out a typewriter that has been languishing alone in their attic since she ostensibly used it to write love letters to Pablo's dad. Though the typewriter began its life with Pablo's grandmother typing pamphlets for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., this detail is never fleshed out, nor is the typewriter ever really effectively personified to elicit any sympathy for its loneliness. Though the artwork is appealing with its simple browns, blacks and white typewriter typeface, and the diagrams of how a typewriter works are interesting, this will be unlikely to interest young readers.-Jenna Boles, Greene County Public Library, Beavercreek, OH (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
When a family computer goes kaput, a famous, but forgotten, typewriter comes to the rescue.Once upon a time, the story starts, there was a typewriter: "Its pale yellow keys were held up by crooked metal elbows. Its gleaming silver arm stuck out like it wanted to shake your hand." The typewriter has an impressive history: Its owner, Pearl, typed pamphlets for Martin Luther King on it, and her daughter, Penelope, used it to type a book for which she won a poetry prize. Years later when the computer moves in, the typewriter is relegated to an attic shelf. Then, one day Penelope's son, Pablo, must write a paper about penguins for school. He doesn't want to do it, and in a delightfully funny Give-a-Mouse-a-Cookie vein, one play activity leads to another until it's after dinnertime. He buckles down, completes his research, is poised to write and thenhis father's computer freezes, and he's sunk. But his mother digs out the cobweb-covered typewriter from the attic; Pablo, puzzled, asks where the screen is and how to plug it in. She explains how it works, and before long, he's happily clickety-clacking away on it. This is a lovely, full-circle kind of story, related in bouncy writing characterized by gently percussive onomatopoeia, with expressive, appropriately retro illustrations in muted colors. Though it figures little in the plot, it's heartening to see via the illustrations that the story involves a multiracial family.A historic typewriter saves the dayand might even be around to stay. (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
