Chris Soentpiet is one of the best children's illustrators around. In 2004 he teamed up with Lester Laminack, an education professor at Western
Carolina University and a former elementary school for "Saturdays and Teacakes." There's a "Dick and Jane" feel to the drawings, but I mean that in the best possible way. They capture simple but beautiful childhood moments, and the characters seem real - and happy
For example, the title page shows a boy bicycling past a wooden fence with his dog. It's a sunny day, which lights up the boys face and his bike's wire basket. And the next illustration is even more colorful, with a red picket fence by a yellow field, and a yellow house in the background behind a bush with red flowers. "When I was nine or ten years old I couldn't wait for Saturdays," writes Laminack - and the pictures seem to show all the excitement in those memories.
Laminack dedicated the book to the memory of his grandmother, "who would know that every word of this is true," and it seems like a real memory. The boy coasts down a hillside - bicycling past horses in a field, and a big red barn. The text describes the things he rides past, and even identifies his grandmother's address. And Chandler's gas station is a landmark, since his mother insists that he cross the highway there, since the street has a stoplight.
But while describing the place, Laminack gradually suggests the neighborhood he remembers so fondly. "In our little town everyone knew everybody," he remembers - and the little boy knows that if he crosses the highway without looking both ways first, his mother was going to hear about it. To this detail Soentpiet adds a wonderful drawing of the old-time gas station. There's the old-fashioned gas pumps - a red "Phillips 66" - plus the gas station attendant pumping gas in a uniform. There's even a car with enormous fins, as a woman walks down the street wearing a colorful weekend dress.
"Pedal, pedal, pedal, across Ross street," writes Laminack. Though the text seems a bit repetitive - listing off the streets on his route - he's suggesting a journey which is unfolding gradually. Soentpiet augments the moment with a colorful drawing of the boy and his dog under a shady tree. The grasses are yellow and green around them, and so are the tree's bright leaves. And on the next page, there's a yard filled with flowers, as the boy finally reaches his grandmother's house.