Children's Book Review: "Madam's Mini"

Madam’s Mini
Written by Jeff Lucier
Illustrated by Judy Allen
BookSurge Publishing (Subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc.)
http://www.booksurge.com/
2007
ISBN# 1-4196-6683-5
34 Pages
$15.99



Hubert, known to just about everyone as Huey, lives on Victoria Street. Down the street in a beautiful house lives Madam and her husband Sir Archibald. They are from England and drive a beautiful red 1966 Mini Cooper S. Madam insists on being very proper as she is English and all and won’t call Huey anything but by his name, Hubert. She will take him on trips to town when she needs to go and he loves riding in her car as does his Dad. As Dad puts it, the Mini is a “sweet ride.”

One day madam has to go to market and post some letters and invites Huey along for the trip into town. Huey knows she means to go get some groceries and mail some letters. He loves to ride with her and agrees to go. On their drive into town they soon encounter a very rude young man driving a 57 Corvette. After he makes a couple of disparaging remarks about the car, Madam challenges him to a race to the outskirts of town with rather surprising results.

What follows is tale of powerful things coming in small packages. Appearances can be deceiving and the young driver of the Corvette soon learns that not everything is what it appears to be.

Along with clear and simple text, this short book aimed at four to eight year old readers is full of wonderful classic type illustrations on every other page done by Judy Allen. Her work alone would have made the book worthwhile as the detailed illustrations are both nostalgic and arresting to the reader. They add real value to a simple tale that entetertains young and old alike. One hopes this isn’t the last tale involving Madam’s Mini as this very pleasurable read is over way too soon.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2008