GO, TRUCKS, GO!

It’s a truck jamboree! Over 40 trucks, some playful, some practical, rumble across the pages of this board book.

Brief, repetitive rhyming sentences describe the action. “Trucks make ditches. / Trucks make hills. / Trucks make highways. / Yikes! No Spills!” Older preschoolers may begin to recognize key words. Fanciful illustrations characterize this diverse trucking world. The monster truck on the cover is painted like a tiger. Another with super-high struts is decorated with flames. Unusual trucks like a weather-tracker vehicle and a space rover are included alongside the expected firetruck and tow truck. Diversity extends to the people, too. The ice cream truck is staffed by a White woman and a brown-skinned man while the customers include a White man and child, a South Asian woman in a sari with a baby and toddler, and a youngster with a Black mom who uses a wheelchair. The truck drivers defy gender stereotypes as well. The trash truck driver is female, as is the excavator operator. Unfortunately, the pictures are small so these details may not be noticed. Still, truck-obsessed toddlers returning to study this compendium will absorb the multicultural tone. Fewer specialized planes to describe and a subject young children have less direct experience with make Go, Planes, Go!, published simultaneously, less successful.

Just enough information for toddlers on the go.