The Trotters of Tweeville
JouJou McVue
This colorful picture book teaches lessons about kindness and slowing down to smell the roses, all in an upbeat read-aloud format.
JouJou McVue is a young girl who unintentionally teaches her father a lesson one Saturday morning about taking the time to enjoy his surroundings. The rhyming cadence and delightful story by Shirin Zarqa-Lederman make The Trotters of Tweeville: JouJou McVue an excellent read-aloud book for elementary-age students.
JouJou likes to act like a princess and since “princesses do not rush all over the place,” she takes her time while accompanying her father on a bike ride around the town’s lake. While dad is focused on doing laps, JouJou takes time to visit with the lonely, lost, and new-to-the-neighborhood characters she encounters along the way.
This is the third book in the author’s The Trotters of Tweeville series, which promotes kindness as a virtue. In the previous stories, characters learn about the Golden Rule and thinking before speaking. These are lighthearted stories about life lessons with likable young protagonists.
The illustrations by Adam Lederman are colorful, bright, and unusual in composition: details such as the flames from the bottom of Dad’s sneakers and the lifelike yellow fuzzy tennis ball stand out. The diversity of the world is reflected in the variety of the neighborhood children’s names.
The rhyming text is wonderful. Here’s a bit about JouJou’s dad: “He’d begin by rushing through his morning routine. It was almost as if he had too much caffeine!” The author also winks at her audience with a teacher’s name, Miss Skoolsphun. Phonetically, it’s “school’s fun.”
Better editing would take care of a few missing commas and a couple of run-on sentences, but the errors don’t detract from this lovely little story that emphasizes slowing down and taking the time to notice what’s around you.
Or, as JouJou herself points out: “Missed opportunities could not be replaced.”
Reviewed by
Robin Farrell Edmunds
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
