Postcards from Buster
Buster on the Town
Buster on the Farm
Buster Plays Along
by Marc Brown
“Postcards from Buster,” a spin-off from the PBS cartoon “Arthur,” has in turn prompted a series of books tagged to different reading levels.
The plots follow different episodes, but benefit from an eye-catching layout that mixes postcards, video captures and cartoon illustrations. One caveat: the video captures are grainy and hard to discern, as with a group of black cows in a barn that merge into one large, fuzzy shadow. A straightforward snapshot would’ve done better.
The stories are simple and contemporary: Buster travels with his Dad to different U.S. cities and meets a real-life boy or girl. In Chicago, a Pakistani-American girl takes him to a favorite ethnic sweet shop. In Indiana, a farm girl gets him up early to milk cows, and in San Antonio he wheezes out a few accordian tunes with a Mexican-American boy.
Of course, the real point of any TV-based book is to build the character franchise, so parents who value literature over branding might want to look elsewhere. But Arthur and Buster fans should enjoy the book series.
Rating: *\*\
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