Rating: WARTY!
I really can't approve of a book for young children which shows such dangerous and destructive behavior, although I do thank the publisher for this advance review copy.
I can understand the impulse to write a book for young children about heavy machinery. Who isn't impressed by the power of these machines we've built? They're loud, and colorful and mighty, and they're especially impressive to children, but when you get right down to it, such machines could equally be defined as destruction machines as they are typically defined as construction machines, right? I think it's interesting how we choose to consistently define them positively when what they really do is remake nature in our urban image.
It's a necessary evil, I admit, but I would question how necessary. I think it's arguable that these are not the answer to everything. In relation to this specific story though, all we are really celebrating here is the mindless destruction of a virgin forest by these machines, for no better purpose than to build a tree house, which in the end seems to make use of nothing that these machines have done! So why was this pristine forest pillaged and razed?! I think it sends entirely the wrong message to a young generation.
It's a bad precedent when we as a race are destroying our climate through our thoughtless activities, to present as a positive thing, the destruction of nature in so frivolous a fashion, but the sad thing is that this isn't even the worst problem with this book. We have here four very dangerous (if useful) machines: a bulldozer, a crane, a dump truck, and an excavator, and the young Dalamation, who stands in as surrogate for our own child here, is shown clambering all over them as they operate. Seriously? There is no warning to be found anywhere how dangerous this is, or how the kid should stay clear.
I think it's a mistake to show children playing on machinery like this and and especially thoughtless to show them on these things when they're actually working! If you wouldn't show the kid holding a working chainsaw, then why show this? I can't recommend this book. I really can't!
