From School Library Journal
PreSchool-K—An imaginative little boy pretends to be a succession of trucks: backhoe, bulldozer, crane, dump truck, and steamroller. Near the end, Daddy joins his son's creative playtime as a flatbed, which is followed by the two sharing a book on trucks. Richly colored, digitally enhanced spreads depict the boy at play, intermingled with illustrations of the actual vehicles. The text is set in white and includes plenty of action words. This is a worthy choice for preschoolers and kindergarteners with a big appetite for truck books.—
Lynn K. Vanca, Akron-Summit County Public Library, Richfield, OH Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
If you can’t drive a piece of heavy machinery, the next best thing may be to become one. In Hines’ latest picture book, a little boy shows off his powers of observation and imitation by becoming, yes, a backhoe but also a bulldozer, crane truck, dump truck, and roller. Then the boy climbs on Daddy, who takes the part of a flatbed truck. Daddy backs up, beeping, of course, and delivers the boy to the couch, where they proceed to read a book called My Big Trucks. Hines’ text is simple but evocative: “I stretch my arms into the sky, way up high. / Bend, hook, lift. Swooooshhhh. Swing. Drop.” The illustrations, which Hines created digitally, are full of bright walls of color, with the boy front and center in his T-shirt, shorts, and bare feet. The machines are displayed with all the necessary details, as are the mounds of dirt they shove around (and the corresponding toys the boy shoves around). A nice tribute to the imagination and, yes, trucks. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Abby Nolan
