by Sam Juliano
He’s off and flyin’ as he guns the car around the track
He’s jammin’ down the pedal like he’s never comin’ back
Adventure’s waitin’ just ahead.
Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer, Go! -Nobuyoshi Koshibe, Peter Fernandez, Speed Racer, 1967
Barbara McClintock has been in the Caldecott hunt a number of times over the years. Her sublime collaboration with Jim Aylesworth, My Grandfather’s Coat, was one of the prime contenders for the 2015 medal, and both the resplendent Emma and Julia Love Ballet and her 2018 Nothing Stopped Sophie written by Cheryl Bardoe were spoken of regularly in the Caldecott forums. Her distinguished career has brought her fame worldwide, with marked veneration in Japan, where her books have been regularly translated, and her Adele & Simon series and Mary and the Mouse books have held the stage in elementary classrooms for years. A persuasive argument could well be tendered that her newest children’s lit treasure Vroom! is her sturdiest bid for the shiny gold sticker yet, what with McClintock fans more excited than they have ever been for the Connecticut-based author-illustrator. Her inspiration for her new work is two-fold. The artist confides she spent much time in her childhood playing with a silver toy car like the one that Annie drives in the book, and in recent adulthood she seemingly firmed up resolve after acquisition of her spiffy new Audi.
Though Vroom’s showcase front cover is gangbusters in conveying the theme, McClintock immediately signals the book’s mise en scene with florescent green end papers which inform young readers that not only will there be no stopping or delaying but not even a cautionary color segue in a narrative committed to unmitigated acceleration. After a title page envisions a car racing full speed ahead, the book’s protagonist Annie happily sets a helmet over her long red-brown hair. The author makes it clear that the power of the imagination is at work and much like one of kid lit’s most iconic characters, Max in Maurice Sendak’s Caldecott Medal winning Where the Wild Things Are, this young girl is wearing pajamas, a obvious clue for young readers anyway that we are about to enter fantasy land for whatever natural continuance one would expect from a racing car obsessive. After two other minimalist vignettes the automotive-attuned child puts on her gloves and hops into her racing car and takes off plane-style through the window of a second-story bedroom in her suburban home. Though a family pet witnesses the air-borne take-off the inhabitants in the home are none too wiser of course the singular hobby-prone youngster has acted on her wishes.
It was a fine evening for a drive. The road was straight and flat. Annie zooms up rural Highway 52 which cuts through a patchwork of fields located beyond small towns where farm works toil, football players practice and cows graze. Adult readers will of course recall the indomitable British professional racing car driver Ken Miles who traversed wide expanses in preparation for some of the most famous competitions in this year’s racing car movie Ford. vs. Ferrari. McClintock’s converging perspective and vivid details suggest endless distance with a promise of sparse variety, which for a racing car driver is precisely what the doctor ordered. After Annie reaches the mountains first seen in the far distance in the plains spread she proceeds up the incline with just as much automotive veracity she exhibited on flat ground, undaunted by plummeting temperatures or meteorological change. In a most interesting reversal McClintock provides a bird’s-eye view of the expanse Annie traveled through from the mountains now at the forefront. But the desert was hot and dry. Annie drives through rocks formations in arid environs, spied only by the location’s wildlife. Her subsequent drive through a “cool, damp forest” where a fox, owls and other foliage animals lurk recalls Stephanie Graegin’s magical A Little Fox in the Forest. In her mirrors Annie can view the departed desert and herself fully satisfied with her driving expedition.
She comes upon a bridge crossing over a “wide river.” She is seen by fascinated school children on a yellow bus and at least one driver heading away from the city. When Annie races through the streets in the steaming metropolis, spellbound children and adults in buildings and on the sidewalk watch her hug the road ahead of a stream of exhaust smoke marking her trail. As with all of the previous illustrations McClintock includes inquisitive animals, who are represented in this busy canvas by a third story feline in a building anchored by a bakery and a canine watching out a window with a child in the adjoining brownstone. Soon enough Annie takes on a more disgruntled demeanor when she encounter the inevitable while driving through city streets: traffic. Conversely, the drivers and passengers in the other vehicles, no doubt used to the delays are seen sleeping, reading, drinking coffee and eating. But in short order this ever-resourceful daredevil weaves her way through the road debacle by pressing down the accelerator in a double page spread that may be Vroom’s piece de resistance. Annie, face behind the wheel, is a picture of exhilaration, with hair blowing behind her and the smoke billowing up from the speeding car, as the wind from the motion induces some to struggle to hole their quickly lost possessions. A policeman loses his cap while trying to alert this rule breaker from violating the speed limit. McClintock paints a tapestry of forward motion that should have readers young and old alike feeling Annie’s unbridled exuberance.
Her travails lead her to a race track where she zooms past seasoned drivers in a stadium where judges are only too willing to bestow upon her a ribboned trophy originally designed for the regular competition. But soon she came to a familiar road that led to a familiar house. The journey comes full circle when this racing car troubadour reaches her home town, and the house where she first made her high octane breakout. Again McClintock employs watercolor and India ink to document suburbia as a carpet of green, in all its Douglas Sirk-like ambiance with school, church and baseball field all part of a ravishing scenic hamlet. She drove up a familiar set of stairs and through a familiar room. Her tornado-like entrance into the building where her globe-trotting journey launched recalls a few scenes from the artist’s own The Three Forms., where everyone, human and pets hold on to dear life. In a room where cars dominate lock, stock and barrel Annie yawns while exiting the vehicle that now has seen some serious increase on the odometer reading. Dad, baby brother and family pets serve as the welcome committee in a bedroom canvas that lovingly recalls the author’s own Where’s Mommy?
The final coda assures readers that with a new days comes new adventures and again the solid green reaffirms there will be no cessation in the thought process of this budding autophile. McClintock’s Vroom carried its appealing theme unencumbered bravado. It is surely one of the finest picture books for the youngest children in quite some time, and there is something to be said about racing to reach a finish line. This could finally be the year this gifted artist reaches her own finish line at the ALA’s mid winter meeting in January in the City of Brotherly Love. Vroom is arguably Ms. McClintock’s masterpiece in artistic beauty, execution of theme in the most lucid terms and flawless chemistry of illustration and text.
Celebrated veteran author-illustrator Barbara McClintock
Note: This is the eighth entry in the 2019 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups at children’s book sites, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 15 to 20 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in January, hence the reviews will continue until the early part of that month.