A Little Favorite

Little Blue Truck

Everyone likes a story about a cute little truck right? I remember reading Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel when I was very young, it was one of my favorites. I think there is just something about big trucks and machinery that captures young imaginations. Lil Guy loves his board book version of Little Blue Truck written by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Jill McElmurry. Little Book Truck and its sequel, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way are board books written for the pre-school set, oversized with 4 to 8 lines per page and big colorful illustrations of the blue truck and his friends.

In Little Blue Truck, Blue is happily driving through the country side, saying hello to farm friends when Dump, a much larger truck comes by him. Dump rushes through but runs into trouble. Blue and his friends are there to help Dump find his way to safety. The story offers a sophisticated selection of words that includes this bit of phrasing, “His heavy duty, dump-truck tires, were sunk down deep, in much and mire.” The rhythm and rhyme is sweet and lulling. The illustrations are adorable with enough details to make the trucks look alive without looking too cartoonish, and the animals look dynamic without being too human-like. Everything seems ‘just right’ in this tasty little book.

I already mentioned that Lil Guy loves this book and so do I. Reading this book is so much fun because it’s a cute story with a little life lesson about getting help from your friends. Soon after we added this book into our daily routine Lil Guy was finishing the phrases on each page and pointing out the characters too. I have to share this story that one day we were out for a drive and saw a blue truck driving down the road. Lil Guy asked me to tell him the Little Blue Truck story and without even thinking about it we were able to recite nearly the entire book from memory. (He helped some too!) Overall, this book is so cute; it has to be shared with preschoolers. I think this book also would be ideal as a gift for a young one.