From “Mighty, Mighty Construction Site.”
There is little doubt as to whether the trucks of Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichenheld’s Mighty, Mighty Construction Site (Chronicle, $16.99; ages 2 to 5) are up for the job, as Rinker’s vigorous text attests:
Rolling, rumbling, revving hard,
ten big trucks meet in the yard.
A mighty, massive SUPERCREW —
From “Little Excavator.”
In 1930, the Little Engine That Could chugged up a hill to test his metal. Since then, countless books featuring anthropomorphized vehicles have followed in his tracks. One of the latest is Anna Dewdney’s Little Excavator (Viking, $17.99; ages 2 to 5) — which is, sadly, a posthumous title from the beloved creator of the Llama Llama books, who had intended to start a new series. Dewdney excelled at pairing rhyme with heartfelt artwork to convey her character’s emotional journeys. The same skills are on display in “Little Excavator,” as the book’s determined protagonist struggles to help transform a vacant lot into a neighborhood park. Dewdney’s drawings of construction vehicles are as expressive as her llamas, and when Little Excavator beams with pride at the end of the book, the reader will feel the warmth.
Whereas Dewdney’s Little Excavator wastes no time trying to prove his worth, the little bulldozer in Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann’s Bulldozer Helps Out (Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum, $17.99; ages 3 to 7) has to watch and wait before he can dig in. When the bigger trucks finally assign Bulldozer a job, he quickly realizes it’s more important to stand your ground than move the earth. Whether depicting massive machinery or little kittens, Rohmann’s solidly constructed and deftly colored block print illustrations make every page turn a delight.
From “Mighty, Mighty Construction Site.”
There is little doubt as to whether the trucks of Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichenheld’s Mighty, Mighty Construction Site (Chronicle, $16.99; ages 2 to 5) are up for the job, as Rinker’s vigorous text attests:
Rolling, rumbling, revving hard,
ten big trucks meet in the yard.
A mighty, massive SUPERCREW —
there is nothing they can’t do!
Briskly paced and stylishly staged, this book’s celebration of teamwork feels like the bombastic opening number of a musical as each truck gets to roll into the spotlight and strut its stuff. Lichenheld’s cartoony oil-pastel illustrations are radiant and capture the grandeur of the construction site as well as the trucks’ determination and pride. These trucks don’t think they can — they know they can. Being on the job site with this can-do team will invigorate old and young readers alike.
Highly literate: From “Little Plane Learns to Write.”
Before we can revel in our mastery, we must first learn the basics. This process can be frustratingly slow, but it can also lead to exhilarating breakthroughs. One such “aha!” moment is writ large in Stephen Savage’s Little Plane Learns to Write (Neal Porter/Roaring Brook, $16.99; ages 3 to 6). Soaring high above city and pastures, Little Plane struggles with his skywriting and gets dizzy when attempting the “loopity-loops” that form the letter O. Perseverance pays off and Little Plane is literally over the moon when he finally learns to write.
As both illustrator and author, Savage seamlessly blends image and word — essential given this book’s subject matter. With its muscular design, saturated colors and crisp language, “Little Plane Learns to Write” is enchanting in its simplicity. The little red plane pops off every full-page spread, and young readers will be frequent fliers for this adventure in writing.
I pause here to note: It’s puzzling that the characters in the above books, with the exception of some of the trucks in “Mighty, Mighty Construction Site,” are all male. The themes of striving and achieving are as gender neutral as the vehicles themselves. If children’s book publishers and authors are ever going to embrace the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” perhaps stories like these would be a good place to start.
From “All Kinds of Cars.”
Dispensing with plot and pronouns, but not personality, Carl Johanson’s All Kinds of Cars (Flying Eye, $16.95; ages 3 to 7) is presented as a pictorial dictionary. Flat colorful shapes playfully combine to depict the carefully observed (small dump truck, small loading shovel, snowmobile) and the completely imagined (castle car, chewing-gum car, crystal car). The simple but cleverly rendered vehicles are likely to inspire children to grab some markers and get in on the fun. Exquisite design and seductive production values make picking this book up a no-brainer. Where to put it down — on your child’s night stand or a living room coffee table — will present the bigger problem.
Recycler: From “Gus’s Garage.”
Gus the pig, the good-natured star of Leo Timmers’s Gus’s Garage (Gecko, $16.99; ages 3 to 8) also knows his cars and, as his ever-present smile attests, delights in inventing new ones. When a penguin overheats or a hare needs a turb charge they turn to Gus, who customizes their vehicles using the pile of “bits and bobs” heaped alongside his shop. Each page spread presents the garage from the same vantage point, and this well-crafted stage set allows the reader to track the refuse pile’s dwindling inventory. By the end of the book only a little tree stands where the pile once stood. The tree provides a home for an odd assortment of birds, proving once again that everything can be made useful. This is an amusing book to reread, since even the smallest details are assigned a narrative purpose. Clearly, one animal’s clutter is another pig’s livelihood in this buoyant, rhyming tale.
From recycling to cycling, Allan Drummond’s Pedal Power (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $17.99; ages 4 to 8) is a timely political story told with a soft touch. In the 1970s, congested roads in Amsterdam were becoming increasingly dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. Young moms like Maartje Rutten began to speak out and stage family-friendly demonstrations that included parties held in the middle of the street and hand-holding singalongs. Though these events were catnip to the local news media, it wasn’t until a little girl was killed while cycling that the movement gained traction. As fuel prices skyrocketed amid a global energy crisis, drivers joined the cyclists in demanding change and together they transformed Amsterdam into the “bicycle capital of the world.”
From “Pedal Power.”
Drummond’s line work and coloring is loose and breezy and serves as a fitting counterpoint to the informative text. I especially liked that the police are not depicted as villainous and retain their humanity even as they confront the protesters. This book is a celebration of both cycling and political activism, and in these turbulent times it’s inspiring to know that when the righteously motivated collectively march, shout, sing and pedal, the powers that be eventually yield.
Though social change is usually a story of fits and starts, a more leisurely paced journey awaits readers in the pages of Vanina Starkoff’s Along the River (Groundwood/House of Anansi, $17.95; ages 4 to 8). Open, the book’s long, narrow pages become the river itself. Drifting along, painted in succulent color and loving detail, are all manner of boats abundantly stocked with food, music and celebrations. Born in Argentina and now living in Brazil, Starkoff creates a vivid tapestry of life that reminds us that the spirit in which you travel is more important than where you go.
Steer your own course: From “Along the River.”
In one wry juxtaposition the text gently implores the reader to “search for … your own way” while “continuing to steer your own course.” The accompanying illustration suggests otherwise: A man, eyes closed, is contentedly lying out on a longboat stacked with watermelons, while a dog naps on his chest. A flock of birds hitch a ride and a school of fish swim along. Whereas the construction trucks are all ambition and drive, this stunningly beautiful book presents a refreshingly new sensibility: Willpower alone can only get you so far; sometimes it’s best to go with the flow.
From “Trains Don’t Sleep.”
The murmur of a lazy river may calm one’s nerves, but the distant sound of “wheels on steel” has always been an invitation to wonder. Where has that train been? Where is it going? Moving from dark forest to frozen tundra, from sleepy village to congested metropolis, Andria Rosenbaum and Deirdre Gill’s Trains Don’t Sleep (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $16.99; ages 4 to 7) covers a lot of ground. Though never explicitly stated, the book is also a dreamy journey back in time to the golden age of rail travel, when circus trains packed with bears, elephants and tigers would “sweep by sheep,” and interstate highways had yet to be built. The illustrated glossary will help young train enthusiasts learn the difference between a flat car and a stock car, but it’s the book’s painted double-page spreads — at once monumental and ethereal — that are truly transporting.
James Sturm is the author and illustrator of the picture books “Ape and Armadillo Take Over the World” and “Birdsong” and an author of the Adventures in Cartooning series.
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