Going Places by Peter H. Reynolds and Paul A. Reynolds (review)

“Rafael had been waiting all year long for the Going Places contest, a chance to build a go-cart, race it . . . and win.” Finally, the big day comes; the kits are distributed and each child heads home to start building. Rafael is pleased to find “a set of precise instructions” and goes about building a go-cart that looks precisely as it should. Classmate Maya, however, has a different idea; rather than following the directions, she opts to literally think outside the box, and Rafael joins her in building a machine that is part go-cart, part airplane, and entirely different from anyone else’s. Inevitably, Maya and Rafael are mocked when they arrive at race day with their unusual contraption . . . until they take off into the sky and easily fly across the finish line first. The story is slight and programmatic, but there is plenty of thematic value: working together, problem-solving, challenging the status quo, and creative thinking are all explored and celebrated in Maya and Rafael’s partnership. While the digitally rendered art, which feature a multicultural cast of kids, lacks the fluidity and vitality of Peter’s previous watercolor work, it’s a cheerful documentation of the events. This has some helpful potential uses, and it could pair effectively with Reynolds’s classic ode to creativity, The Dot, in a storytime focusing on originality.