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PRESCHOOL
Gillis, Kellie DuBay

Big Bike, Little Bike

40 pp. | HarperCollins/Harper | February, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9780063315235 $19.99
(2) PS Illustrated by Jacob Souva. Duck finds a bike with a sign that says “free” leaning against it. After taking it for a spin, Duck realizes the bike is too big: “wibble, wobble, whoops.” Then a rhino comes along, for whom the bike is too small: “thump, bump, whump.” It’s too slow for a cheetah, too fast for a turtle. Gillis’s text is simple enough to make this picture book double as an effective beginning reader, and the story makes a jaunty and poetic impression. Souva’s digital illustrations take a restrained approach, re-lying on spot images built out of blended textures that observant readers will appreciate. Eventually, a warthog crashes the bike, and a human parent finds and fixes it up for their child: “a new bike!...just right for me!” Another book might have stopped there, but this one continues as the child grows out of the bike, moves on to bigger ones, and many years later finds the old bike in the attic as an adult. Then what does the bike’s owner do? Puts it out with a “free” sign for another child to find. In this way, the story uses a light touch to provide a layered look at sustainability, modeling the values of passing things along to those who can use them and mending what’s broken, and, most of all, the appeal of bicycling around town.
Reviewer: Adrienne L. Pettinelli | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2025

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