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  • The No. 1 Car Spotter and the Firebird
  • Deborah Stevenson
Atinuke The No. 1 Car Spotter and the Firebird; illus. by Warwick Johnson Cadwell. Kane Miller, 2012. 94p. Paper ed. ISBN 978-1-61067-052-4 $5.99 R Gr. 2-4.

No. 1 (from the No. 1 Car Spotter, BCCB 11/11) is back, and he and his small African village are facing new problems. There's a leopard prowling around and stealing goats, and No. 1 must find a way to protect his family's livestock; the rising waters make the road through the village impassable, so No. 1 finds a way to help people across; when Mama Coca-Cola (mother of No. 1's best friend) hates her new house so much that she threatens to stop making her succulent akara, No. 1 comes up with an ingenious solution. No. 1 is developing a clear character type now: while he's an ordinary kid with regular embarrassments and flaws (he's an utter failure at defending the goat flock with a slingshot as the other boys do), he's Mr. Ingenuity when it comes to solving village problems (he deters the leopard by garbing a decoy goat in a shirt covered in fiery hot sauce). It's that quality that finally gets No. 1 a close encounter with the Pontiac Firebird he's lusted after as it drives through the village; it turns out the car is driven by a professor, who's interested in the inventive village boy. No. 1 therefore remains an immensely appealing protagonist, and the comfortable domesticity of his village makes even the bickering affectionate and warm. Cadwell's monochromatic illustrations bring a pleasing contemporary edge to their amiable cartoon vignettes.

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