Perfect Picture Book Friday - The Adventures Of Tinker And Tanker

Yippee!  It's Perfect Picture Book Friday!  And I have such a good one!

Hop into your time capsules, because we're going back to my childhood today... and we all know how long ago THAT was! :)

This was one of my most favorite books when I was little.  I remember the characters, the pictures, and the stories so clearly! - but the book itself got lost somewhere (or more likely my brother has it and isn't sharing :))  Anyway, I'd been thinking about it for some time, and when I looked on Amazon, I found a used copy.  It's not in great condition, but it's exactly as I remember it :)  I hope you'll be able to find it in your libraries and that you'll get a chance to read it.  They don't make 'em like this any more! :)

Title: The Adventures Of Tinker And Tanker
Written & Illustrated By: Richard Scarry
Doubleday & Company, 1960, Fiction

Suitable For Ages: 3-8

Themes/Topics: friendship, helping others, adventure, problem solving, books for boys

Opening: "Two close friends - Tinker, a brown rabbit and a very good mechanic, and Tanker, a big strong hippopotamus - were out in their car looking for work and for a place to live."

Brief Synopsis: Tinker and Tanker are two good friends who help people in need wherever they go.  This book actually contains three stories: Tinker And Tanker, Tinker And Tanker Out West, and Tinker And Tanker And Their Space Ship.

Links To Resources: HERE you can make your own hot air balloon; I couldn't find Richard Scarry exactly, but HERE are some farm animal finger puppets to make; Tinker and Tanker love to try new things and they always turn into adventures - think up an adventure you could have, play dress up, and act it out.

Why I Like This Book:  The things I loved as a little girl are the same things I still love.  I love the friendship between Tinker and Tanker.  I love their arrival in a friendly town, and how they fix up the empty broken down repair shop behind the train station to be their workshop.  I love the (let's face it!) wackiness of their adventures - Tanker lifts a train, Tinker disguises himself as a papoose

when Tanker dresses as a squaw to fool the bad guys out west, they build a space ship out of sail cloth and a basket - all exactly the kinds of things I did, tried to do, or imagined myself doing when I was 5 :)  The art is classic Richard Scarry - cozy and fun.  But reading the stories again, one of my favorite things is how totally they break pretty much every rule we're given about writing today.  There's loads of "telling".  The train derails and crashes off the track.  A house is burning down.  Little mice are floating out to sea and in danger of being eaten by a giant fish.  Out west, someone fires a gun.  The baby Gloria gets kidnapped.  The term "Indian" is used more than once and the "Indian" speech is terribly stereotypical... I could go on :)  And yet the stories are FUN.  They aren't in the least bit frightening.  And it's kind of great to see how a book that doesn't follow any of the "rules" can still be a wonderful book! :)

Can you imagine this in a PB today?
That's Tinker, disguised as baby Gloria, holding the gun!

For the complete list of books with resources, please visit Perfect Picture Books.

The past couple weeks have been a bit crazy with college revisits and life in general, and I have not had time to get around to all the PPBF posts the way I like to.  I apologize for that, and hope that I'll be able to do better today! :)  PPBF bloggers, please leave your post-specific links on the list below and I'll try! I'll really try! :)

Have a great weekend, everyone! :)