Wild Blue: Taming a Big-Kid Bike
by Dashka Slater (Author) Laura Hughes (Illustrator)
In a charming take on a milestone moment, a young girl summons a cowpoke's courage to tame her intimidating new bicycle.
Kayla loves riding her pink pony, a three-wheeled bike, up and down the street, day after day. But then Daddy announces that it's time for a big-kid bike, one with just two wheels. At the store, Kayla selects her mount, but when she tries to ride it, she is thrown--again and again. Can she tame this intimidating set of wheels? Or is the new blue bike just too wild?
Tender and relatable, Wild Blue captures the emotions of moving up in the world through an endearing character with a boundless imagination. Despite falls, bumps, and bruises, Kayla takes her time learning the ropes, until she finally has the confidence to let go of her fear, climb back on, and ride again. Her story will delight and reassure readers transitioning from trikes or training wheels and inspire them to manage setbacks with patience and creativity.
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Through the extended metaphor of taming a wild stallion, an imaginative child describes learning to ride a new bike in this warmly encouraging story. When Daddy puts Kayla's little pink bike "out to pasture," the child, portrayed with tan skin and lasso in hand, is taken to "wrangle a new one from the herd" at the local bike shop, selecting a snazzy blue two-wheeler that's called Wild Blue. "This bike's not tame enough to ride!" declares Kayla after being "bucked" from the bicycle. Working with acrylic ink, Hughes leans into the book's premise, incorporating western references into what seem like otherwise metropolitan scenes: in one spread, a group of cyclists transforms into a pack of horseback-riding kids in western hats; in another, the bike's shadow is that of a horse. Time spent practicing at a park eventually yields results, and the oneness the child achieves with Wild Blue as they ride off into the sunset--"Her legs are my legs./ Her mane, my mane./ Her breath, my breath"--aptly captures the thrilling triumph of learning to ride. Ages 3-7. (Feb.)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
Dashka Slater has written many picture books, including Escargot, which won the Wanda Gag Book Award; A Book for Escargot; Love, Escargot; Escargot and the Search for Spring; Baby Shoes; and The Antlered Ship, which was a Junior Library Guild Selection and received four starred reviews. Her New York Times-bestselling nonfiction young adult novel The 57 Bus won several accolades including the Stonewall Book Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Book Award. She lives in Berkeley, California.
Sydney Hanson is a children's book illustrator living in Sierra Madre, California. She works in a combination of traditional and digital media to create her illustrations--her favorites are watercolor and colored pencil. She loves the outdoors and is a certified naturalist who spends most of her spare time poking around the woods with her Labrador retriever, Cash. To see all of her latest animals and illustrations, follow her on Instagram.JUV039090 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | New Experience
JUV032180 - Juvenile Fiction | Sports & Recreation | Cycling
Imagination
Fathers and daughters
Picture books for children
Children
Bicycles
Cycling
