Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle

In honor of the DLM’s first birthday yesterday, I wanted to share this sweet, sweet board book, a gift to him from us and the girls.  The girls went to work with Steady Eddie for a few hours yesterday afternoon, so I pulled ou Little Blue Truck sans wrapping paper or anything festive, just to see how the DLM (and, I confess, I) would like it.  (I thought we could wrap it up later for his party, right?)  Well, the DLM enjoyed opening and shutting the cover a lot, and I enjoyed reading it to him as he crawled out of my lap and I caught him by the ankle, just in time to avoid his plummeting over the arm of the couch and onto the floor below.  🙂  Knowing what I know about repetition, rhyme, and onomatopoeia and how they are some of the first “hooks” into reading for babies and toddlers, I don’t think it will be too long before he’s “reading” along with me on this one.

Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle is the story-in-rhyme of none other than the Little Blue Truck, a friendly little old-timey pickup that encounters all kinds of animals as he makes his way down the road:  a toad, a sheep, a cow, a piggy, a chicken and her chick, a goat, a horse, and a duck.  All of the animals greet Little Blue Truck with their various sounds, but this neighborly give-and-take is rudely interrupted by a brash and self-sufficient dump truck as he zooms down the road, yelling

Coming through!

I’ve big

important

things to do!

I haven’t got time

to pass the day

with every duck

along the way!

Well!  Dump (as he is called) gets his comeuppance when he gets stuck in a huge mud puddle, and who comes to the rescue but the Little Blue Truck and all his animal friends?  The cherry on top of this fun romp is when

They couldn’t quite budge

that heavy load.

Then who hopped up

but big green toad.

Big green toad, muscles flexed, provides the last bit of oomph needed to get the Dump out of the muck.  Alice Schertle’s poetry is perfect in this tale, but I have to mention the gorgeous illustrations by Jill McElmurry, too.  I would love to have prints of some of the pictures from this book for the DLM’s bedroom!  They are old-fashioned and warm and just plain old fun.  From Little Blue Truck viewed through Dump’s mirror, coming to rescue him from the mud, to the big green toad flexing his muscles and with a gleaming white smile, these illustrations are playfully humorous and a perfect match to this rollicking story.  Highly Recommended! (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008)

I’m adding this book to my Best Picture Books list ,  a list I haven’t worked on in a while. (That list is always up there at the top under Booklists.)  With the DLM coming on, though, I bet I’ll find lots of new gems to add to it!  I would love to add Little Blue Truck Leads the Way to our collection at home, too.

I’m linking this post up at Poetry Friday, which is hosted this week by poet Toby Speed (yes, that Toby Speed) at The Writer’s Armchair.