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PRESCHOOL
Zimmerman, Andrea , Clemesha, David

Smashy Town

32 pp. | HarperCollins/Harper | May, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-0-06-291037-0 $17.99
(2) PS Illustrated by Dan Yaccarino. "Today some old buildings must come down so a new building can go up." Mr. Gilly, who starred as a trash collector in Trashy Town (rev. 3/99), is now employed as a demolition worker. Still clad in a blue plaid shirt and brown coveralls, Mr. Gilly happily gets the job done: "My crane may move at just a crawl, but watch out for my wrecking ball!" The creators follow the first book's format: left-hand pages feature the text's infectious onomatopoetic refrain: "GO! / Swing the / ball, hit the / wall! / SMASH, / SMASH, / SMASH! / Swing the / ball, hit the / wall! / CRASH, / CRASH, / CRASH!" At each stage of demolition, right-hand pages track the progress: "CRUMBLE, / TUMBLE, / down goes / wood. / Is the / demolition / done? / NO!" Eventually, Mr. Gilly switches from crane to bulldozer to clean up the mess of bricks, wood, glass, and stone. Yaccarino's color-block illustrations cleverly portray the wrecking ball's pendulum-like movement with bits of debris in orbit around it. An intermittently rhyming text and energetic page design build momentum and excitement. From the front endpapers, we know that a new library and park are "coming soon"; the back endpapers reveal the revitalized city block. With a preschooler-pleasing subject, this rollicking book will bring the house down.
Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2020

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