The driving force behind the upbeat, inspiring Sarabeth's Garage is a self-aware young car aficionado who's not afraid to pursue her dreams.
Sarabeth loves engines that "roar... like lions" and "purr... like kittens." She loves sports cars, "sleek and fast like cheetahs," and "boxy SUVs" that move more like elephants. Tires, motors, carburetors, and engines--Sarabeth loves them all. On Saturdays, she works with her dad in his garage, where they eat lunches that her mother packs and talk about all the cars that come in to be fixed. Sarabeth's grandmother grumbles, "In my day, little girls played with dolls, not cars and trucks." Sarabeth's feelings are hurt, but she loves every second she spends in her dad's garage. One evening, when her grandmother's car "grumble[s] and groan[s] like an unhappy walrus," Sarabeth checks under the hood. She takes a wrench, makes a "careful adjustment," and "just like that, the engine roar[s] like a lion," then "purr[s] like a kitten." Sarabeth's grandmother apologizes, explaining how in her day, "girls didn't know how to fix cars." Sarabeth forgives her: "In my day, girls can do anything they want."
Melanie Florence's Sarabeth is an independent spirit who knows what she wants and follows through. She's strong, opinionated, and puts her passion and knowledge to good use, changing the mind of her equally opinionated grandma along the way. Nadia Alam's dark pencil outlines use photo-edited color to fill the pages with hues as lively as Sarabeth herself, which brings the girl's imaginative impressions to life. Sarabeth's Garage is a fine spin on evading societal constrictions at any age. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author