Pelletier, Andrew T. (Andrew Thomas Pelletier)

Personal

Male.

Addresses

Home—Altamont, NY.

Career

Author of children's picture books.

Writings

Sixteen Miles to Spring, illustrated by Katya Krenina, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 2002.

The Amazing Adventures of Bathman!, illustrated by Peter Elwell, Dutton (New York, NY), 2005.

The Toy Farmer, illustrated by Scott Nash, Dutton (New York, NY), 2007.

Sidelights

Since publishing his first children's book in 2002, Andrew T. Pelletier has contributed several stories to the picture-book pantheon available to young readers and listeners. In Sixteen Miles to Spring, he focuses on the changing season in a story about two teens—Wilbur and Wiley—whose slow, leisurely motor trip north in the early months of the year spreads warmth and the start of the growing season due to the magical mixture of seed, soil, and straw that they carry with them and cast from their pickup truck along the way. While noting that Pelletier's storytelling borders on the sentimental, Wendy S. Carroll added in her review for School Library Journal that the "idea of the story is cleverly brought forward." "Pelletier's fanciful imaginings are given colorful substance and texture through … spirited paintings" by artist Katya Krenina, concluded Booklist critic Ellen Mandel in her appraisal of Sixteen Miles to Spring. Calling the tale "lovely and carefree," a Kirkus Reviews writer added that Pelletier's porquois tale is "richly imaginative, with the harbingers of spring quirky enough … to impart a sense of the magic in store for all of us."

Pelletier tells a more rambunctious story in The Amazing Adventures of Bathman!, which finds an imaginative young bather determined to right the wrongs of Cap'n Squeegee, terrorizer of tubby time. When the ornery Squeegee kidnaps Rubber Ducky, the young boy transforms into the brave and squeaky-clean Bathman and endeavors to save Rubber Ducky before Mom calls him for dinner and pulls the plug on bathtub fun. Nostalgic, 'fifties-style artwork by Peter Elwell "complement[s] the clever text well, reinforcing the humor" of Pelle- tier's story, wrote School Library Journal contributor Lisa S. Schindler. As Schindler added, The Amazing Adventures of Bathman! will encourage children to engage in creative play and even "make them eager to hop into the tub," while another critic concluded in Kirkus Reviews that "Pelletier's first effort deftly mixes bath-time antics with superhero bravado and a touch of hard-boiled detecting."

Brought to life in pastel-toned illustrations by Scott Nash, Pelletier's The Toy Farmer recounts a story about a boy who is carried on a dreamlike adventure by a cast-off toy. Searching around his home's attic, young Jed discovers his father's old toy tractor and a miniature farmer that fits in the tractor's driver's seat. The morning after playing with the toy in his room, Jed awakes to find that his bedroom carpet has transformed into sprouting vegetation, and a pumpkin vine now sprouts huge pumpkins that cover his bedroom furniture. The pumpkin continues to grow until it so large that Jed submits it to the judging at a local fair, but when he returns home with his first-place prize, the magic is gone and the tin toy farmer is just a toy. In Kirkus Reviews a contributor dubbed The Toy Farmer "a gentle homage to the power of a child's imagination," and a Publishers Weekly critic praised Nash's "irresistible retro-inspired illustrations" for "light[ing] up" Pelletier's magical tale.

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2002, Ellen Mandel, review of Sixteen Miles to Spring, p. 1535; August, 2007, Carolyn Phelan, review of The Toy Farmer, p. 89.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2002, review of Sixteen Miles to Spring, p. 262; April 15, 2005, review of The Amazing Adventures of Bathman!, p. 479; July 1, 2007, review of The Toy Farmer.

New York Times, December 2, 2007, Krystyna Poray Goddu, review of The Toy Farmer.

Publishers Weekly, August 13, 2007, review of The Toy Farmer, p. 67.

School Library Journal, June, 2002, Wendy S. Carroll, review of Sixteen Miles to Spring, p. 107; July, 2005, Lisa S. Schindler, review of The Amazing Adventures of Bathman!, p. 81.