Cars Go

I have to give this 4 stars only because of the dystopian future my 19 month-old apparently finds on the final page. Spoiler alert: after several pages of various cars and trucks making car and truck sounds (driven by people), the denouement of the series is a sleek, self-driving car asking “where you'd like to go today”. My son, after spending a solid 3 minutes pretending daddy is driving mama in a taxi and a monster truck is jumping amazing piles of dirt, is disturbed by the cold lack of humanity presented by the “car of the future”. I'm prepared to accept that my performance of the car's voice is a contributing factor to his malaise, but I suspect there is more here. Ultimately, it is the awkward juxtaposition of engine sounds with the final spoken word that is uncanny. It must be like reading a book about various interesting people and then finally encountering a robot that is programmed to be a father but yet is just a talking lawn mower. I sympathize with his refusal to engage with the “car of the future”, even though I am fascinated with it. After all, the taxi, the jalopy, the monster truck, the police car, the race car... none of these vehicles demand to know where you are going. As the title states: Cars. Go. The “car of the future” does not “Go”. It only asks where you would ‘like' to go, but does not actually take you there.