Ms. Yingling Reads: Tow on the Go! and Player Attack

Lakin, Patricia and Galletti, Chiara. The Mambo Rescue! (Tow on the Go!)

August 29, 2023 by Simon Spotlight

Copy provided by the publisher

Tow Truck Mo is called out on a snowy day to free ten cars that are stuck in the snow. They all want service FIRST, so there is some squabbling. Mo assures them that he can help rescue them all, but he needs them to listen to his instructions and follow them closely. Since Mo is enamored of mambo music, he plays a song on his radio and has the first car hold onto the tow chain. The other cars follow, dancing and singing as they get out of the snow. The trucks are all happy to be rescued, and Mo is glad that he saved the day.

This is a level one reader, and is nicely formatted for children who are trying to read on their own. The font is very large, and there are two or three sentences on each page. The rhyming verse helps to predict which word will be next, and the repetition of some words like "ten" and "car" will help children with their word recognition.

Galetti's colorful illustrations showcase the emotions of the trucks' faces and have a 1960s vibe to them, thanks to the boxy nature of the cars and the use of yellows, purples, and blues together. The swirls around the vehicles, which include musical notes, stars, and snowflakes, give this a wintery feeling of motion.

I like Mo's exuberant positivity in the face of the cars' demands, and how he uses music to motivate himself to do his work. Of course, I now have The Enchanters' Mambo, Santa, Mambo stuck in my head, but maybe I can use it to motivate me to get more work done, just like Towtruck Mo!

Lakin, Patricia and Galletti, Chiara. The Splish-Splash Puddle Dance

(Tow on the Go! #2)

December 12, 2023 by Simon Spotlight

Copy provided by the publisher

On a rainy day, Race Car Ro is out frolicking in a field. The fresh puddles are enticing, and he starts to splash in them. Unfortunately, one is deeper than the others, and he gets stuck! Calling on Tow Truck Mo to come and rescue him, Ro hopes to be freed soon. Mo starts to hook his crane to Ro's undercarriage, but Ro is so ticklish that he has to stop. He tried to use his lasso to pull the race car out, but Ro has sunk too deep in the mud for him to reach. Mo has music on his radio, and when he starts to mambo with Ro, the two manage to free him from the mud. The rescue accomplised, the two spend some time splashing in the puddles as they sing and dance.

Cars and trucks are fascinating to many young readers, and race cars are the best, especially when they are revving their engines. This is a good lesson in being careful; Ro should have definitely assessed the puddles more carefully. He's lucky to have his good friend Mo who can come to rescue him, even if it is a difficult process.

Seasonal books are always a good choice for preschool children, who are still learning about the seasons and the weather. The first book in this series, The Mambo rescue, has a winter theme, so Mo's fans will be glad to see him back in this spring romp. The pastel colors in the background after the rain clears and Ro is rescued are a nice constrast to the gray, rainy scenes when Ro is stuck! Mo is often surrounded by swirls of stars of musical notes that give a nice fantasy element to these stories; cars can't really mambo their way out of difficult situations, but they also don't have Mo's broad grin!

Emerging readers who enjoy being read to while running Matchbox cars over the pages, and who found titles like Alexander's Mini Mighty Sweeps or Van Dusen's Big Truck, Little Island amusing will enjoy Mo and his antics, but be prepared to adapt the text into a musical format so that this book can be sung with appropriate fervor!

Wolf, Winston. Player Attack (Minecraft Wolf Diaries #1)

Publication December 26, 2023 by AFK (Scholastic)

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Winston Wolf is very excited to start his training for the wolf guard; after all, his mother, Wendy Wolf, is a high commander. Winston, however, doesn't pay very good attention and finds himself biting one of his friends instead of sticks during training, and doesn't seem to understand what "silence" means. Some of his friends, like Felicia Fang and Lobo, are very understanding and long suffering, but even his mother is beginning to wonder if he is really cut out for any of the jobs the wolf pack has. When there is a threat to security, High Commander Okami decides to send the wolf scouts out of the den to see if they can figure out what is going on. Winston heads out with his friends, having stopped by Edwina's shop and picked up some of her technological inventions that the wolves don't like to use. When the group arrives, they wisely tell Winston to stay in one location and watch for suspicious things. When a player comes into his area, he decides that he will tame him, and gets the player to throw him lots of bones. When the two finally talk, Winston tells the player that he will be called Brian; of course, the player thinks that HE has tamed Brian. Something has gone wrong with the other wolves, and Winston's guess that the threat is coming from the baby turtles is correct. He thought that they were criminal masterminds. Luckily, one of Edwina's inventions is an anti-adorbs collar, so Winston is immune to their cuteness. He manages to save his friends and get them back to the den, where he tells his mother that the job he will be best at is secret agent, and that secret agents don't have to worry about their social skills because they don't work in packs, they work alone.

Strengths: This is written in 30 point font, with many bold words (think Geronimo Stilton) and pictures, and presupposes a really good working knowledge of the Minecraft game and universe. Winston's goofy enthusiasm and his habit of misbehaving because of this enthusiasm will be seen as amusing by the target demographic. This was a nice deep dive into the inner workings of an underrepresented Minecraft subgroup. Their hierarchies, acronyms, and training are well described. Winston "taming" a player was interesting, especially when the player said that his mom told him it was time to stop playing the game, and Winston wasn't quite sure what he was talking about. I can see this being hugely popular with younger readers who enjoy Minecraft.
Weaknesses: Since I have never played Minecraft, I found this very confusing. I didn't really remember the wolves having any role other than just menacing in the background of games. I'm sure that the average 8 year old Minecraft enthusiast could get me up to speed.
What I really think: This series will be perfect for readers who love Barnett and Lowery's Mac Undercover (Mac B., Kid Spy #1), but are a tiny bit below the reading level required by Cube Kid's Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior series. (Which I not only purchased, but purchased a second time in better bindings because they were so popular.) I'll probably buy these (if they are available in prebinds) for my school library for the struggling 6th grade reader, but most of my students will prefer the DelRay Books/Mojang Minecraft novels like The Haven Trials.