No. 1 Car Spotter by Atinuke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
There is No. 1 in the village, his name is Oluwalase Babatunde Benson. He is the number one car spotter. He can spot cars and tell the make of a car just by listening to their engines sounds. The No. 1 car spotter comes to the rescue when the village cart breaks and there is no way to get products to the market. He uses his knowledge of cars to convert a Corolla to a Cow-rolla.
Reading this book brought back memories of when I was growing up in my village. There weren’t many cars in the village and if someone owned one, they were considered rich. If a car was spotted arriving in the village everyone stood to see and it would be the talk of the day. Good old times.
Atinuke did a great job in conveying African village life. She showed the sense of community when villagers get together to help each other. Even though they might be poor (less material things), they are rich in other ways (helping each other and lots of laughter).
I wasn’t crazy about the names of his family. I would have preferred to see more traditional names instead of Nike, Emergency, Go-Easy, Tuesday, Sunshine or Smile. We know the No. 1 car spotter has a traditional name Oluwalase.His friend Cola Cola used to have a traditional name and we read later in the book how he got his Cola Cola name.
Overall, this book is fun to read and entertaining. I highly recommend it.
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Tags: children book
