This colorful addition to the board-book shelf gives toddlers just learning to talk much to talk about.
This simple board book and its three companions focus on picture recognition and learning everyday words.
An equal number of boys and girls take the wheel in this illustrated list of vehicles. Some of the children are even brown-skinned with curly dark hair. Curry's characters sport the same round heads and noses as Charles Schulz's Peanuts gang, and the girl driving the school bus even looks an awful lot like Peppermint Patty. Curry's palette is slightly off from primary colors, with pink undertones and surprising tints. Still, iconic elements keep them recognizable. Neither the taxi nor the school bus is yellow, for instance, but their shapes are typical. Trains, Boats, and Planes expands on the transportation theme with more unusual choices, a couple a bit problematic. Steam trains are in widespread use, even in England, where Curry lives, and most Americans would say “light rail” instead of “express train.” It is also redundant to refer to “An underwater submarine.” Zoo Animals and Farm Animals follow similar formats, with one animal described by one adjective per page. In the latter, the sheep and pig are paired with their babies, and the book ends with a white farmer driving a tractor towing a trailer.
This colorful addition to the board-book shelf gives toddlers just learning to talk much to talk about. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0199-6
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...
The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.
The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.
Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-32041-3
Page Count: 24
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
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Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed.
Beep! Beep! Beep! Toad and Little Blue Truck get ready for a hayride.
After the titular vehicle is loaded with hay, Toad is nowhere to be found. “Beep! Beep! Beep! Where are you, Toad?” asks Little Blue Truck. All the barnyard animals look for him. Sheep searches the meadow. Goose and Duck check the pond. Others pitch in, too, but Toad seems to have disappeared…until Hen hears snoring coming from the pile of hay in the back of Little Blue Truck. Although the text’s scansion is imperfect in places (adults may want to pre-read to ensure a smooth read-aloud), the bouncy meter and rhyming text nevertheless capture the energy of the search and the farmyard community’s concern for Toad’s safety, making this a solid storytime choice. Eye-catching illustrations with rich, fully saturated colors balance the right level of detail while still highlighting the animal that is the focus of each verse. By introducing one farm animal at a time, Schertle also helps the youngest readers begin to identify barnyard animals by name and understand their unique farm homes. Traditional animal sounds are part of the text, and listeners will add them to their vocabulary. It all ends with the promised hayride, bringing the tale to a joyous ending.
Fun times, fond friends, and a festive farmyard setting—little ones will be charmed. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9780063436121
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2026
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