TRUCKS TRUCKS TRUCKS

Following in the path of Fire Truck (1998), S°s transports young listeners to a realm they love, the world of trucks. Matt’s mother asks him to put his trucks away. He does so, accompanied by gerunds on every truck’s talent: digging, plowing, pushing, rolling. With each turn of the page, the text—running sideways up the right margin of the spread—and the trucks get a little larger. Soon, the text is fairly barking, while Matt manfully works the vehicles—he has become their size or they have become his. Toward the end of the book, in a gate-fold illustration, Matt is seated in an enormous crane, hoisting one of his socks; on the next page, his room is tidy, the toy trucks are stowed, and restored to their size, just as Matt is restored to his. As a last, obliging touch, the action moves outside, where Matt and his mother are off on an errand; their neighborhood is a hotbed of truck action. The world that S°s creates is wonderfully inviting, not least as a result of his artwork, with their simple, expressive lines and minimal use of color. (Picture book. 2-5)