Roy Makes a Car »

Mary E. Lyons is the author of many books for children and young adults, including Roy Makes a Car, Feed the Children First, Dear Ellen Bee, Letters from a Slave Girl, and Sorrow's Kitchen. In addition to the Golden Kite Award and a Horn Book Fanfare for Letters from a Slave Girl, Lyons was also the recipient of a 2005 Aesop Award for Roy Makes a Car and a Carter G. Woodson Award for Sorrow's Kitchen. A teacher and former librarian, she lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. You can learn more about her at www.lyonsdenbooks.com.

Terry Widener is an award-winning illustrator whose picture books include Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man (a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book and an ALA Notable Book) and The Babe & I (a recipient of the California Young Reader Medal), both by David A. Adler, and Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings (a Junior Library Guild Selection) by Deborah Hopkinson. Mr. Widener lives with his family in McKinney, Texas.

Down in Eatonville, Florida, there's a man who can clean spark plugs just by looking at them hard, and who can grease an axle faster than you can say "carburetor." Folks round those parts claim Roy Tyle might just be the best mechanic in the world. But Roy, you know, he never can find an automobile made to suit him. He figures, if a car was built right, there wouldn't be so many collisions out on the road. And so when Roy — that wonder-making man — says he's going to make an accident-proof car, there's no telling what he'll cook up behind his double-locked doors....

Based on a tall tale collected by legendary African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston, Mary E. Lyons's souped-up story is perfectly complemented by Terry Widener's bold, dramatic illustrations.

Publishers Weekly

Lyons (Feed the Children First) and Widener (Girl Wonder) turbocharge a folktale originally collected by Zora Neale Hurston as part of the 1930s Federal Writers' Project (as stated in an author's note). Adding a heavy dose of southern dialect, Lyons recounts the tale of a mechanic in Eatonville, Fl., with brisk pacing and plenty of colloquialisms. "People from those parts think Roy Tyle is the best mechanic in the state.... Why, he can grease an axle faster than you can say `carburetor,' and he can clean spark plugs just by looking at them hard." When Roy produces-in only an hour-an "accident-proof car," a gambling man bets against him, trying to instigate fender-benders involving Roy's "stabilated, lubricated, banjo-axled, wing-fendered, low-compression, noncollision car." Widener's acrylics take up the playful exaggeration of the text, depicting scenes of the jet-black, 1930s-styled wonder auto rising up and over (or sliding, low-slung, underneath) the challengers' vehicles. The wide-eyed faces and exaggerated features of the townsfolk add a comic edge and emphasize the hyperbolic tone. After selling a flying car to God, Roy continues puttering in his workshop, leaving readers to wonder what he's up to next. Ages 4-8. (Jan.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.