Easter Buggy? Mater and the Easter Buggy by Kirsten Larsen

EASTER WAS JUST ONE DAY AWAY, AND THE CARS IN RADIATOR SPRINGS WERE REVVED UP FOR FUN.

AS LIGHTNING MCQUEEN DROVE DOWN MAIN STREET, HE SAW HIS FRIENDS GETTING READY FOR THE HOLIDAY.

All the motorized conveyances are in the spirit. Red the Firetruck has tulips coming along; Model T Lizzie is holding a "spring" (as in suspension) sale; and Fillmore the Van has painted up a pile of pastel gas cans for the annual can hunt. As always, Lightning is skeptical of fantastical characters such as the Easter Buggy, but like a good friend, he doesn't want his buddy Mater to be disappointed if his homemade cast-off tire basket, with its hopeful sign "Fill 'Er UP," isn't fully furbished by Easter morn.

LIGHTNING KNEW HE HAD TO DO SOMETHING.

IF THE EASTER BUGGY DIDN'T SHOW, MATER WOULD BE SO DISAPPOINTED.

It wouldn't be a Cars story if there weren't a car chase somewhere, and soon the chase is on! Lightning waits for Mater to doze off and races around Radiator Springs with Mater's empty basket, always just one step behind that evasive Easter Buggy, determined to fill that basket himself if the tricky Buggy fails to do the job.

It seems that I'm the not the only one who is a sucker for a silly pun and parody, and Kirsten Larsen's Mater and the Easter Buggy (Disney/Pixar Cars) (Disney Press, 2012) puts this groaner of a pun into best use as the premise for this timely takeoff on the venerable watching-for-the-Easter-Bunny theme in this holiday story honoring comic character Mater from the movie Cars.

Young motorheads may not quite catch all of Larsen' tongue-in-cheek touches (e.g., Mater's waiting Easter basket is made from a tire and ultimately filled with car parts and accessories), but the tale of that evasive bunny (er. buggy) who is always just out of Mater's sight (but not the reader's), works just as well here as it does in other Bunny-and-baskets stories for the picture book set, such as last year's hit, Splat the Cat: Where's the Easter Bunny?.

Little kids will giggle at the pink VW bug(gy), who, with air scoop "ears" and hood-mounted nose and whiskers, stays just one turn ahead of the chase, and everyone will be satisfied when the loyal Lightning returns to find Mater's tire basket already suitably set up for the season. For an appropriately shameless seasonal spinoff of a Disney hit movie, this one is short, spoofy, and certainly sweet. Anybody want a bite of my chocolate lug nut?