Vehicular Verse: Truckery Rhymes by Jon Scieszka

PATTYCAKE, PATTYCAKE

Pattycake, pattycake, Dumpster Dan,
Dump me some dirt as fast as you can.
Slide it and drop it and mark it with D.D.
And pile it in the lot for Melvin and me.

Melvin, of course, is the sometimes timid cement mixer, one the playful, prankful, and zoom-y residents of Jon Scieszka's Trucktown, a motorhead municipality if there ever was one.

In his brand-new Truckery Rhymes (Jon Scieszka's Trucktown), the powerful trucks turn poetic, with a new take on nursery rhymes featuring the residents of Trucktown. (Previous experience with Mother Goose recommended.) Here's some firehouse fun based on the familiar nursery song:

POP BLOWS THE DIESEL

All around the parking garage
Pat Pumper chases the Diesel.
Pat Pumper thought it was all in truck fun
'Til POP! blows the Diesel.

Pat Pumper with a spool of hose
And Lucy with her ladder.
That's the way the Truck Game Goes,
POP! goes the Diesel.

Or for a morning preschool sing-along, here is a sample of a few verses of the vehicular version of "The Wheels on the Bus":

The scoop on the truck goes chomp, chomp chomp, etc.,
The blade on the truck goes scoop, scoop, scoop, etc.,
The siren on the truck goes whoop, whoop, whoop, etc.,

and finally, after many verses,

The ice cream truck goes "Do you want ice cream, do you want ice cream, do you want ice cream?
All the trucks say "Lazy, you're messing up the song!"

All the gang are here--Monster Truck Max and his fellow bully Big Rig, Emergency Rescue Rita, Wrecker Rosie, and Payloader Pete, to name a few. The action never stops with trucks, and for good reason:

THAT'S WHAT TRUCKS ARE MADE OF

Metal and stuff and everything tough--
That's what trucks are made of.
Play by the ton and everything fun--
That's what trucks are made of.

As always, Scieszka's pit crew of creative "mechanics"--artists David Shannon, Loren Long, and David Gordon--car-pool their skills to come up with the vehicles of Trucktown in illustrations that will appeal gloriously to the little guys out there who adore these mighty movers.