JACK’S HOUSE

There is a little joke lurking for readers in Beil’s twist on the classic cumulative tale of the house that Jack built. This is not to diminish the pleasantly steamrolling construction work or the agreeable narrative presence of Max the dog, whom readers learn honchoed the effort while Jack busied himself elsewhere. Max introduces readers to bulldozers and backhoes and forklifts, and a handful of trucks: cement, rack, boom and dump. These great machines loom on the page, but Wohnoutka has beveled the edges to make them as soft as sponge cake and just as desirable, as they shimmer in the heat of a summer afternoon. The text chugs along with no surprises—“This is the van / that brought the hammock, cozy and snug / where the trees were planted / and the roof was nailed / and the windows were framed…”—until Jack gets his comeuppance and Max gets his just deserts. This book was built for those youngsters with a jones for trucks and other big wheels, and it delivers in spades. (Picture book. 4-8)