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| "The pen is the tongue of the mind." -Cervantes |
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One of The Hardest-Working Trucks -- 9/18/02 By Caroline Parr Nothing stinks like a garbage truck, and there's never been a sassier, stinkier garbage truck than the one in Kate and Jim McMullan's "I Stink!" It's a big, bold picture book about a smelly truck and everything it devours - apple cores, dirty diapers, kitty litter, toothpaste tubes, and ugly underwear. It roars and revs and makes a lot of noise: "Did I wake you? Too bad!" Full at last, it burps loudly and heads for the barge where it unloads, then turns toward home as dawn begins to break. Maybe you think this truck is too loud, has too much attitude, stinks more than any skunk but, "Without me? You're on Mount Trash-o-rama, baby!" The truck's exaggerated features, the dynamic typeface, and the garbage-y colors of purple, orange, brown, and black add up to a sure-fire hit with kids between three and six. In fact, a colleague reports that her four-year-old has declared it his favorite book and expects it to win the Caldecott Award!
One of the hardest-working trucks in picture books can be found in Virginia Lee Burton's classic, "Katy and the Big Snow." Katy is a big, strong crawler tractor with a bulldozer for dirt and a snow plow for snow. One day it begins to snow hard, and as the snow gradually covers all the roads in Geoppolis, everyone and everything is stopped - except for Katy. She puts on her snowplow and starts to plow out every street in the city. First she plows out the police department, then the post office, then the phone company and the electric company. It takes her all day, but Katy doesn't stop until every street in the city of Geoppolis is clear again. Preschoolers who like to watch things that go will have a field day. Katy's fans will also want to check out Burton's "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel." Mike's steam shovel Mary Ann is being put out of a job by the new diesel and gas machines, but the pair get one more chance when they travel to a small town in the country. The town mayor will pay them to dig the foundations of the new school on one condition - they have to finish the job in one short day. Suspense builds as Mary Ann struggles to complete the task as the clock ticks, and readers are relieved when the good guys win. But now what - how will Mike and Mary Ann get out of the big hole they've dug, and what will their next job be? Virginia Lee Burton's elegant solution has delighted children since this picture book was first published more than sixty years ago. CRRL Patrons: Use the library's online catalog to reserve any of these titles or call your local branch to check them out today. Web site visitors: Print out this book list and use it as a guide on your next visit to your local library. |
Ready for more truck books? "Trashy Town," a picture book by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha, features a garbage truck driven all over town by the amiable Mr. Gilly. Every time he picks up a load of trash, readers can join in on the chant, "Dump it in, smash it down, drive around the trashy town!" Finally, he's cleaned up the whole town and there's just one thing left to clean up - and there's Mr. Gilly in the bathtub. The rhythmic text and simple, blocky illustrations by Dan Yaccarino combine to make a storytime favorite that everyone wants to join in on.
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