PETE’S PARTY

This weak title, one in an early-reader series that’s part of Scieszka’s Trucktown brand, purports to provide active children with a similarly rambunctious easy-to-read package. Scieszka’s author’s note for the series boasts, “Everything about Trucktown has been built to excite and motivate young readers…This is…a world where kids are inspired to become readers by action stories, and helped to become readers with amazing illustrations and selected vocabulary.” The result falls far short of such claims. Two trucks, Jack and Gabriella, follow a succession of legit and spoof road signs to a party at bulldozer Pete’s garage. Three illustrators, including David Shannon and Loren Long as well as Gordon, collaborated to create Trucktown’s unremarkable, stereotypical visuals. Jack is a sturdy red-and-blue flatbed, while Gabriella’s a pink garbage truck with a flowery monogrammed and a yellow “bow.” Typical visual personification for the vehicles—headlights are eyes; grilles are mouths—and muddy digital execution add little that’s fresh. Also out in June: Zoom! Boom! Bully (ISBN: 978-1-4169-4139-2; PLB: 978-1-4169-4150-7). For emergent readers, more hype than help. (Early reader. 4-6)