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Tractor Saves the Day

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Tractor Saves the Day
by Mandy Archer, illustrated by Martha Lightfoot
QEB Publishing, 2012. Unpaged.  Nonfiction

     Not sure whether Tractor Saves the Day should really qualify as nonfiction, since a dog is driving the tractor, but there is a lot of good tractor information in the book.  Still, one wonders what kind of a farm this is, where one animal owns and bosses around the other animals.  How does Dog subject everyone--especially the cows--to his will?  Something of a mystery.  In any case, Ms. Archer has her facts straight about tractors.  They do start up with a BBRRRROOM sound.  The combine (which appears to be driven by a goat) and the tractor have to hurry in threshing the wheat and baling the straw because the sky is dark with rain clouds. Farmer Dog is fortunate to have happy, obedient cows who march right up to the barn to be milked. The day the tractor saves is particularly true to real farm life--dog and tractor are up before dawn and don't make their way back to the garage until the sun is setting.  A kid-pleasing appendix shows the parts of the tractor and includes other farm machines--combine, crop sprayer, baler, and plow.  Martha Lightfoot's brightly colored, clearly delineated pictures should be a particular delight to farm-loving youngsters.

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