Some months ago I read Kyo Maclear’s Noodles on a Bicycle, or rather, read, enjoyed, and appreciated it. It’s a good book that is both fun, emotional, and educational. It focuses on noodle delivery men biking around Tokyo, racing one another and turning a job that had to be exhausting into something fun and artistic.
This week I stumbled across a video version of the story in my library and picked it up, mainly because I was curious to see how the book would work when animated. The answer is, it wasn’t–animated, that is. This is a video version. Sarah Skaer reads the text aloud in a clear, well-paced delivery, and the visuals come from showing the book’s images on the screen. Sometimes this adds a sense of motion, like when the camera glides through a crowded street, or one of the noodle delivery men is trying to keep his carefully balanced tower of noodles from falling. (Aiiieee!). Sometimes, though, it takes things away. Gracey Zhang’s illustrations in the book use space well, and fairly often the video shows only part of a page, weakening the design and impact.
I did enjoy it, and kids who like the book will enjoy things like the closeups.
