• Tinyville Town Gets to Work!
• written and illustrated by Brian Biggs
• published by Abrams Appleseed (2016)
• Roar Score: 5/5

I must admit, though I would’ve guessed that my kids were beyond the target audience for Brian Biggs’s Tinyville Town series, the books were nevertheless a surefire hit. My son (5), especially, fell in love with them.

Tinyville Town Gets to Work! is the “core” book in the series and is a picture book very much reminiscent of Richard Scarry’s Busytown series. If you know and love Busytown, then there’s a lot to love in Tinyville Town. The book establishes some of the residents of the town as they come together to build a new bridge.

Three of those residents then take center stage in complementary board books. I’m a Firefighter, I’m a Librarian, and I’m a Veterinarian dive a bit deeper into those characters and what they do each day.

The books obviously cater to a preschool audience, where kids first learn about neighborhood jobs and responsibilities. But just as Sesame Street has a wider appeal beyond numbers and letters, so too does Tinyville Town. Brian Biggs‘s art is charming, and I could easily see Tinyville Town become an animated series with the same look.

One of the most refreshing aspects of the books (though it’s frustrating that it even is refreshing) is the diversity Biggs has included in Tinyville Town. In Tinyville Town, women can be police officers, firefighters, and construction workers. Skin tones come in many different shades. LGBTQ people exist. And all of it is so normalized that the numerous examples of diversity and equality don’t even need a spotlight. Tinyville Town is a place where everyone is welcome and lives harmoniously together.

In short, Tinyville Town is where we, as a society, should be…but sadly aren’t. It is a portrait of good citizenship that I gladly share with my kids – because it’s so frustratingly difficult to find in the world around us.