WHERE DO DIGGERS CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS?

Trucks of all kinds get ready for Christmas with the help of an elflike little mouse.

Readers are invited to imagine and act out the activities of large-eyed, smiling diggers, cherry pickers, forklifts, tanker trucks, and others that are on their way to a large gathering. The appealing story is in rhyming verse, although the scansion is frequently awkward: “Where do cherry pickers celebrate / once they’ve stretched to reach great heights? / Do they hang up strings of colored bulbs / that make truck stops bright with lights?” Each type of truck is featured on its own brightly colored double-page spread in landscape design with lots of room for individual scenarios. A family of diggers excavates a tree, concrete mixers sip eggnog after a long day’s work, and tow trucks “trade places with the reindeer / to help Santa pull his sleigh.” Tractors, food trucks, Zambonis—they’re all here, ready for the “Truckcracker ballet” at a construction site with a decorated tree. By the end of the day, the sleepy-eyed trucks reveal themselves to be toys left under the tree by Santa (depicted as white) in a lucky child’s cozy home. Rural and urban settings, indoors and out, day and night, will encourage kids to stretch their imaginations.

For young truck enthusiasts.