Four-wheeled fun, if a little unbalanced.
The big trucks work hard all day, and at night they sleep, just like us.
Near the highway, as vehicles “vroooom” by, big trucks are busy building a road. “Digger’s sharp teeth hit the earth. / He’s clawing holes for all he’s worth.” Backhoe “jolts and judders,” making the “whole road shudder.” Dump truck carries away heaps of earth. Grader has a “giant blade,” which “gets the sticky asphalt laid.” Concrete mixer turns sand, gravel, and cement, churning them into the new road’s surface. “Dusty plow truck at the double. / Tips his load of stones and rubble.” Last of all comes “huge road roller,” with big impressive wheels, to give the new highway a smooth surface. There’s a double gatefold at the center of the book, giving a panoramic view of all seven colorful trucks, hard at work. After a hard day, the trucks take the exit ramp off to bed. A good rub with a cleaning brush, a cooling spray, and it’s time to rest. “All tucked safely in their yard / they snuggle down, they’ve worked so hard.” Freedman’s crisp and accessible verse is the perfect complement to Smythe’s bright and blocky illustrations, which have a toddler-friendly Lego or Playskool feel. While construction workers and passers-by of both genders and diverse skin tones populate the pages, all the trucks are gendered male—an odd disconnect.
Four-wheeled fun, if a little unbalanced. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-9011-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
A thought-provoking tale of growth and change.
The Pumphrey brothers bring their now-signature style to this tale of an old sleigh that, like the vehicles in The Old Truck (2020) and The Old Boat (2021) before it, works hard in a changing world.
As the story opens, readers see a Black-presenting child and parent chopping firewood and loading it into a horse-drawn sleigh against a snowy landscape. “In a small town,” we learn, “an old sleigh gave all it took.” Parent and child deliver the firewood throughout the town, making it “merry and bright.” But the small town grows bigger, and the old sleigh’s wooden body begins to break down. The industrious child turns some of its planks into a new sled and uses it to deliver smaller loads of firewood. In the final pages, readers see that the child’s parent has repaired the old sleigh, which the child, older now, uses to deliver firewood in the “small city” that has sprung up. Some readers may be left with questions: Is the figure driving the sleigh at book’s close the child, now all grown up? And can a city really spring up that fast? On the whole, though, the narrative beguiles as sleigh and sled haul their loads from verso to recto across each scene. The community’s buildings stand out against the snow in reds, greens, and mustards, and the simple and rhythmic text charms.
A thought-provoking tale of growth and change. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781324054122
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Should appeal to all the little grump trucks hauling their feelings about.
When dump trucks get angry (really, really angry), head for the hills!
Little Dump Truck is “the happiest member of the construction crew.” Assisting everyone from Excavator to Bulldozer, she hauls her load merrily. But sometimes things just don’t go her way. In rapid succession, dirt is blown in her face, a tire is punctured, and a flock of birds mistake her for a lavatory. Now she’s Little Grump Truck, and the exceedingly poor advice from her co-workers (“Ignore it. You’ll be fine”; “Shake it off!”) pushes her too far. After Little Grump Truck unloads (figuratively and literally) on her colleagues, everyone else has the “grumpies” too. It isn’t until she closes her eyes and focuses that Little Dump Truck is able to clear her mind and lighten her mood. Apologies are in order, and soon everything is humming (for the time being, anyway). Though the narrative doesn’t drill the message home, both child and adult readers alike will hopefully pick up on the fact that pithy aphorisms are maddeningly unhelpful when one is in a bad mood. Gray skies accompany the dump truck’s mood, which is depicted as an ever morphing agglomeration of hard, black scribbles. The accompanying art serves its purpose, investing its trucks with personality via time-honored headlight, windshield-wiper, and grille facial features. Little Dump Truck has a purple cab and green bed and a single lash on each headlight eye. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Should appeal to all the little grump trucks hauling their feelings about. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30081-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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