Sutton’s rhythmic text, full of onomatopoeia and muscular action words, captures the excitement and energy of big trucks hard at work and powerful machinery bashing concrete and metal. Lovelock’s meticulous illustrations, rendered in pigmented ink, give the job site a suitably dusty patina and put the equipment and vehicles center stage, where young fans will want them...This is all about as good as it gets for truck-obsessed preschoolers.
—The Horn Book (starred review)
The text is rife with onomatopoeic phrases and action verbs, making it great for reading aloud and building vocabulary. Lovelock’s pigmented ink illustrations capture details about the machines–from treads to gears–in a style that is graphic and yet painterly. The geometric nature of the construction equipment offers another avenue for engaging children with the book.
—School Library Journal (starred review)
Smashing good fun for preschoolers of both genders.
—Kirkus Reviews
A visually and verbally emphatic delight for younger readers who are stuck on trucks.
—Booklist
The bright red and yellow vehicles pop out from the dappled and speckled blue-hued settings, and Lovelock's crisp ink line delineates rivets, hydraulics, and heft. It's clear that for all the pointing and switching and even driving that humans do, the real magic is in the ruthless efficiency with which these engineering marvels collide and gnaw into a hapless structure.
—Publishers Weekly
Building things: good. Knocking things down: better. This onomatopoetic homage to destruction finds a multicultural and mixed-gender crew of workers suiting up at the job site, swinging a wrecking ball, chomping through concrete and rebar, ramming down walls, hosing dust, crushing stone, chipping wood, sorting steel scrap, and clearing the way for an urban play lot.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Author Sally Sutton and illustrator Brian Lovelock capture the excitement and energy of big trucks hard at work.
—Horn Book online
The fun of DEMOLITION comes mostly from the sound effects that 2- to 5-year-olds will be only too happy to provide as they follow Sally Sutton's account of a demolition team taking down a derelict building.
—Wall Street Journal
Three cheers for this rip-roaring good read.
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
PreS-Gr 2—Sutton follows up Roadwork (Candlewick, 2008) with a sure-to-please title for construction-loving fans. Demolition depicts all the equipment and action necessary for knocking down an old building, "Whirr! Churr! Crunch!" to clear the way for the construction of a playground. At every phase of the destruction, mention is made of the recycling and repurposing of materials. The text is rife with onomatopoeic phrases and action verbs, making it great for reading aloud and building vocabulary. Lovelock's pigmented ink illustrations capture details about the machines—from treads to gears—in a style that is graphic and yet painterly. The geometric nature of the construction equipment offers another avenue for engaging children with the book. A picture glossary with simple facts about the function of each machine is appended. Pair this book with Jon Scieszka's Smash! Crash! (S & S, 2008), Eve Merriam's Bam Bam Bam (1995), and Denise Fleming's Alphabet Under Construction (2002, both Holt) for an animated storytime.—Amy Commers, South St. Paul Public Library, MN
Ode to a wrecking ball! And other heavy construction equipment. "Grab your gear. Grab your gear," begins the book, which offers 11 four-line verses in bold lettering, each in a two-page spread highlighting a different aspect of the demolition process. Workers get into their protective gear as the wrecking ball is moved into place: "Buckle, tie, and strap. / Safety jackets, boots and hats. / Zip! Stamp! SNAP!" The jaws of the excavator "Rip! Roar! CRASH!" And its basket works to "Ram the walls. Ram the walls." The mobile crusher grinds up broken concrete, and the industrial wood chipper shreds the wood: "Split and chop and chip." One verse is dedicated to loading the truck with debris, another to building playground equipment on the excavation site. The final lines--"Join the fun. Join the fun... / Hip...hip... HOORAY!"--depict happy people using the park that has been designed and built on the demolition site. A final illustrated page offers some concise "Machine Facts" on both the vehicles and some of their components. The onomatopoeia in Sutton's simple rhyming text is appealingly extreme, and it's like a natural for listener repetition, though the verses could be more distinct from one another. Lovelock's bright pictures--in ink, acrylic and colored pencil--are a solid match. Smashing good fun for preschoolers of both genders. (Picture book. 3-5)