ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Arrival of Tavish the Tractor by Anne K. Stewart, Illustrated by Monika Filipina @fayerogerspr @authoright #TavishTheTractor #BlogTour #ChildrensBooks
Welcome to my review stop on the blog tour for The Arrival of Tavish the Tractor by Anne K. Stewart. My thanks to Faye Rogers for the place on the tour and to Authoright for sending me a copy of the book for review purposes.
Meet Tavish the Tractor, he’s a bit different from the other tractors, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a busy tractor! Let him show you how!
The Arrival of Tavish the Tractor is a lovely read for children. One day, at the tractor factory, a man is given the job of painting the tractors either blue or red. He gets distracted and ends up pouring blue paint into the red paint, thereby making purple. He decides to paint one of the tractors in the new purple paint and hopes he won’t get into trouble.
At first, nobody wants Tavish, the purple tractor, they all want the red and blue that are the expected colours. But then along comes Jimmy and his dad and Jimmy takes a real shine to the tractor, christening him Tavish. Tavish goes home with them and makes himself very useful indeed on the farm.
What really shines through in this book is the message that just because you look different doesn’t mean you are different. Tavish is just the same as all the other tractors underneath his paintwork. In fact, at the end Tavish thinks to himself that he thought nobody would want him because he wasn’t the same as the rest. I think the message that this is completely untrue is a really powerful and important one to put across to children. It’s done in an obvious way within the narrative and yet not rammed down the reader’s throat.
There are lovely illustrations too to accompany the story. They’re nice and colourful and I thought they were really attractive.
I loved Tavish the Tractor, both for the heart-warming story and for the point behind it.
Anne K Stewart is a retired teacher, who specialised in the Pre-school sector. She is delighted to have been able to write something for her two young grandsons. “The Arrival of Tavish the Tractor” is her first book. Stewart currently lives in Aberdeen, Scotland.
