ON THE ROAD

In this vehicle-rich road trip, the burgeoning travel and automobile enthusiast will like what he sees: a road crowded with cars, vans, semi-trucks, dump trucks, emergency vehicles, motorcycles, cement mixers, and various and sundry roadwork machinery. All of these vehicles come complete with roadway accessories such as traffic lights, bridges, and tunnels. It quickly becomes clear that the little red car has a destination: “Off we go along the road.” Its journey takes it around the city and countryside, heading up hills, around corners, and over fields before reaching its final, sandy destination. Young readers probably won’t be bothered by the fact that this is obviously British, but it is worth noting the differences like license-plate lettering and driving on the other side of the road. The straightforward and spare text won’t challenge young readers, but it does offer a little lesson in prepositions. Extra zoom comes through the vividly colored, torn-paper illustrations that fill the oversized pages and almost crunch with texture. (Picture book. 2-4)