EVERYTHING GOES: GOOD NIGHT, TRUCKS

A collection of trucks call it a night.

A milk truck, a tractor trailer, a dump truck, a garbage truck, a tanker truck, a tow truck, a monster truck, a flatbed truck and more all go about their end-of-day routines as the sky goes from twilight to evening. With only one or two trucks per double-page spread, long shadows and images of workers winding down from a long day, the scenes are quiet. A fire truck backs into the station, and the driver of an ice cream truck hangs a closed sign on the outside of her vehicle. The text is minimal, consisting mainly of captions labeling the vehicles, so it is Biggs’ quirky cartoons of chunky vehicles and droll people in muted hues that tell the story. The second-to-last double-page spread shows a pajama-clad man yawning and closing the door to his motor home, and the final scene depicts four dark vehicles in a moonlit RV park as the text reads, “Shhh...good night!” It’s refreshing to see the nonanthropomorphic vehicles only suggesting bedtime rather than being forced to perform getting-ready-for-bed rituals.