Byron Barton (1930–2023)

Waiting for her guests to arrive for her Halloween party one year, Hester the alligator gets restless, and sets out to fill her time by trick-or-treating through her neighborhood. Coming to a spooky house, she knocks on the door and is invited in by the old lady who answers. Introduced to the old lady's friend, given a tour of the house, and then taken on a nighttime broom-ride—for this old lady is a witch!—Hester has a marvelous time, before returning home to her own Halloween show more celebration...

Published in 1975, Hester is the first book I have read from prolific picture-book author and artist Byron Barton, although I have long been familiar with his work. His board books, particularly the ones featuring vehicles, were always popular with our customers, back in my bookstore days. In any case, I found the story here engaging, and liked the parallel between the witch's party, with its clearly monstrous guests, and Hester's party back home, with its dress-up monsters. The broom-ride was a lot of fun, reminding me of a number of other witchy tales I have read, and I appreciated Hester's generosity in offering her own broom, when the pair crash lands, destroying the witch's broom. The artwork is vibrantly colorful, with lots of oranges, yellows and greens—very appropriate for the season!—and a simple style that had a distinctly 70s feeling for me. All in all, this was a sweet little witchy confection, perfect for a Halloween story-time, and it for that purpose I would recommend it. show less

This book is quirky, fun, and a very simple read for beginning readers. This book lists what a car is, what you can do with a car, the parts of a car, etc. I think this book would be especially great for ELL students in that it clearly captions the parts of a car and most of the words in the book are fairly easy to read. Although this book is worded, it clearly describes what is going on in the illustrations as well. So, if a reader gets stuck on what the words say, he or she could look at show more the picture cues to analyze the page. show less

Straightforward telling of the story, but maybe a bit long for a board book audience. I liked that it wasn't abridged, though, as thus we get to see more of the bright cheerful cut paper(?) illustrations of Barton... so fun! (Even if the hen's legs are fat... maybe she's wearing gaiters or something....)

The Turkeybird Speaks (My son's opinion, age 3): "Now this is the part where I tell you to pull up a chair and your favorite snack so you can settle into a great book. Does it really get any better than trucks, planes, and trains? I would say not! They move, they have wheels, they go fast and they do all sorts of fun things. I especially liked reading my plane book when we traveled cross country to our new home. It was neat to look out the window and see the same sky that I was looking at in show more my book. These books are a must have for every home. Go get them!"

Mom's Two Cents: "I have to agree with The Turkeybird and the publishers summary. We initially purchased the Trucks book when he was very little and it instantly became a favorite. Now that he is quite a bit older (at least two years have passed) he still picks them out of our full bookshelf. As he mentioned, we traveled by plane this last summer to move from the DC area to California and the Planes book was a huge hit! There are images of people getting on and off planes in the book and because of the small airport we initially left from, we were able to get aboard the plane just as they did in the book, which he loved! And though you would think these books wouldn't appeal to girls, even The Littlebug picked the Plane book out yesterday as her book of choice.

"Now, onto the technical side of the book. What I, as a parent, really like about these books are the simple text and straight forward images. It's not going to be the most beautiful book on your shelf, nor will the words be drawn out and elaborate, but it still holds an entertainment and educational value I can't deny. Each page has between 3 to 5 words with a simple illustration demonstrating the text. For smaller kids it can often times be overwhelming to have a book filled with words and dramatic images, but these books though not elegant are still captivating. I highly recommend these books for beginning readers and even for older children who may need a respite between larger, more complicated books." show less