RED CAR, BLUE CAR

A sprightly color rhyme urges toddlers to climb aboard seven pop-up vehicles, from yellow bus to orange rocket.

Aside from a pink hot air balloon, which only floats, Litton piles on the speed—sending the red car “zipping down the street,” a white plane “zooming through the sky,” the rocket “speeding to the moon!” and so on. In very simple cartoon illustrations Verrall provides a smiling cast of clothed animal passengers (the plane is labeled “American Bearlines”), many of which are visible through windows in the die-cut pop-ups that hover an inch above each leaf. Both the undulating lines of verse and the pictures are printed on sturdy coated stock; better yet, since the various pop-up vehicles are reproduced underneath, even after little hands rip off the raised versions, all of the images and context remain. Except for a pair of chirping chicks on one spread (the faces underneath the pop-up feature disconcertingly gaping mouths), numeracy-promoting companion title One, Two, Baa Moo offers the same design feature.

Unexceptional in content but at least unusually durable.