THE DAY I HAD A FIRE TRUCK

In the third picture book in Wall’s The Day I Had series, a young boy and his friends are put in charge of a fire truck for a day.

Blonde-haired, fair-skinned Luke and his dad are cleaning out the garage when Luke’s happy, stumpy-legged dog Bobo draws Luke’s attention to the big red fire truck parked outside. The truck has a note inside from the fire chief asking Luke to put together a crew and take over for the day (“the other firefighters and I have taken the day off to check out the new water park”). Luke and Bobo drive around to collect their friends (who have diverse skin and hair tones): bookworm Noah, go-getter Emma, and accident-prone Mikey. Together, they learn about firefighting equipment, rescue a cat from a tree, and put out a fire. Then Luke’s mom calls over the radio, telling him to come home and clean his room. Wall narrates using straightforward prose that doesn’t draw attention to itself—except in cases of deliberate emphasis, such as Mikey’s blue-font exclamations when he knocks over a fire hydrant. Duck’s illustrations, which combine hand-drawn and computer imaging techniques, afford a good sense of character and make astute use of the two-page spreads. The dinosaurs and bulldozer from previous The Day I Had books appear as toys alongside a toy fire truck, hinting deftly at Luke’s powers of imagination.

A gentle little adventure filled with learning and friendship.