BUSY TRUCKS ON THE GO

A boy and his dad see lots of trucks about town.

The duo are mostly in their little red car (seat belts prominently shown, though the boy seems too young for the front seat) when they see all the vehicles that toddlers are famous for loving: excavator, dump truck, concrete mixer, bulldozer, freight trucks, tractor, tow truck, mail truck, school bus, fire truck, “paramedic truck,” garbage truck, recycle truck, city bus and street sweeper. Readers can almost follow a story, imagining the father and son on a road trip. But turn the page, and they are running past the letter carrier, seemingly so the little boy can catch the school bus; in the next spread, they are back in the car and a few later, biking (without helmets) down the street. Nonetheless, Ode’s rhyming couplets will have readers bouncing right along with them, no matter what they are doing: “Concrete mixer roars and rumbles. / See his drum? It turns and tumbles. / Soon he opens up his spout. / All the concrete rushes out.” Beyond the apparent lack of a visual narrative, Culotta’s bright illustrations misstep in at least one spread in which the boy seems noticeably older than in the others. Though the trim is small, the full-bleed pictures prominently feature the trucks and the time the father and son spend together.

Truck lovers will be so enthralled they will probably float right past the visual miscues, at least the first few times around.