Wind Power! (Blaze and the Monster Machines)

by Frank Berrios, Benjamin Burch (Illustrator)

Blaze uses wind power to beat Crusher and Pickle in a sailboat race! Boys and girls ages 3 to 7 will love this action-packed Little Golden Book that features all of their monster truck friends from Nickelodeon s Blaze and the Monster Machines!

24 pages, Hardcover

First published July 12, 2016

About the author

I was born and raised in Spanish Harlem, Queens, and the Bronx. As a New York kid, I remember riding graffiti-covered subways and hearing hip-hop blaring from parks and passing cars on the street. I loved my city. It was always buzzing with activity and different things for kids to see and do.

But I also loved to just sit and read. It started with daily comic strips like Peanuts by Charles Schulz. Then I discovered Mad Magazine and superhero comics like Batman, Spider-Man and Black Panther. These stories dealt with heroes and villains, innocence and guilt, freedom and justice. I became interested in justice and the legal system and was encouraged to become a lawyer. I had enjoyed working with kids as a counselor at a summer day camp, so I also thought about being a teacher. But after graduating from college, I knew that being a lawyer or a teacher just wasn’t right for me.

I found a temp job at DC Comics in midtown Manhattan. I answered phones, sorted mail, and did other small jobs. It wasn’t creative work, but I met cool people and got lots of free comics. That led to a full-time job in the Editorial Department. I went from reading comic books for fun, to working with legends in the comic book industry. Before long, I moved from DC Comics to Random House Children’s Books, where I’ve worked on a wide variety of Disney and Nickelodeon books over the last twenty years.

I’ve also written several Little Golden Books, including Black Panther, The Amazing Spider-Man, Falcon, Miles Morales: Spider-Man, I Am Captain Kirk and Too Many Tribbles! as well as My Little Golden Book about Jackie Robinson, Football with Dad and Soccer with Mom.

Reviews

[Kate M. Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daniel and I got the Blaze Little Golden Books set for Jack for Christmas because he loves Blaze. He finally discovered them today and asked me to read them. He sat in my lap in the loft for most of the time (but he did do some walking around the table too) while I read. As expected, he was excited to see the monster machines. He liked how I did a silly voice for Crusher, along with Crusher's cheating antics. He also got excited about Blaze's mission to find the boat parts, and he liked quoting Gabby, "I can fix anything."

[Glynnis · Rating 2 out of 5]

The kiddo LOVES this series - and on TV it does an alright job of introducing some STEM concepts, but it doesn't translate to the books. The artwork is nice, but it's clear that someone was trying to translate an episode of TV and missed some information.
That being said - Little Man loves it and could read it until the cows came home!