Goggles!

Goggles!
Ezra Jack Keats/ published 1969 by Macmillan

Again with the classics. The tone is a little darker that some of the others about Peter and his gang (Snowy Day, Whistle for Willie, Pet Show!, etc.) My son really likes this book, but sometimes the older bad boys spook him a bit. Me thinks he thinks it is delightfully menacing.

So Peter and his friend Archie find a pair of motorcycle goggles and are psyched... that is until some older kids try and take them away. With the help of Peter's trusty dachshund, Willie, they manage to evade the gang.

They got to Archie's house.
Archie laughed and said,
"We sure fooled 'em, didn't we?"
"We sure did," said Peter, handing him the goggles.
"Things look real fine now," Archie said.
"They sure do," said Peter.

I love how Keats' books quit on an open-ended note that is upbeat but still ambiguous. For some reason they remind me of that Soderbergh film Sex, Lies and Videotape. How the final scene ends with Andie MacDowell and James Spader sitting on the steps. She says... "I think it's gonna rain. And he says... "It is raining". I love that.

Also by:
In a Spring Garden
Maggie and the Pirate
Whistle for Willie
How To Be A Nature Detective