  | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 07/01/2013 PreS-Gr 2—These delightful, finely crafted, informative, fun verses can serve as Common Core exemplar texts while satisfying truck and poetry fans. Each rig's function is described with great care and attention to language with seamless rhymes, alliteration, and assonance gracing the selections. Nothing seems forced about Vestergaard's rhymes; they're smooth and sure, and easy to set to memory: "After the asphalt's dumped and spread/in sticky, long black lines,/the road must cure. You can be sure…/Steamroller's close behind…." About the cherry picker, Vestergaard writes, "The picker pauses in the sky,/plucks its target,/then…/gently, slowly, gracefully, sets it down again," and in a tour-de-force ending: "digger, dozer, dumper, grader/backhoe, roller, excavator/…." Each poem is presented on a spread with lighthearted acrylic and charcoal illustrations that often include a girl and two boys of various hues and a yellow hard-hat-wearing pup, as well as the rigs themselves with hints of personification in their headlight eyes. There are 16 machines in all: garbage truck, forklift, street sweeper, and so on. The cartoon children are depicted operating the machines, but the final illustration reverses the relationship of object to child; suddenly the children are quite big and their trucks are small and handheld. This book is intelligent and informative, with craft, rhythm, great art, and entertainment.—Teresa Pfeifer, The Springfield Renaissance School, Springfield, MA - Copyright 2013 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Booklist - 07/01/2013 This collection of poems introduces 16 hardworking vehicles, from a little street sweeper tidying up the neighborhood to a mighty semi barreling down the highway. In the framework verse, three children are invited to try out the trucks. While the verse concentrates on the accomplishments of each vehicle, the illustrations show the kids (and sometimes their cheerful canine companion) in the driver’s seats. The rhythmic, rhyming verse is expressive as well as informative. The text may be a bit long for the youngest truck fans, but they will be captivated by the lively artwork. In contrast to Slonim’s lovely landscape paintings in The Deer Watch (2013), here his energetic acrylic-and-charcoal pictures animate the industrious trucks, creating amusing facial expressions from headlights, bumpers, and other seemingly immobile features. The final spread gathers all the vehicles together and, with the turn of a page, transforms them into toy trucks moved about by the children. Fun for reading aloud, especially one-on-one. - Copyright 2013 Booklist. Loading...
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