Can We Build It? Builder Goose: by Boni Ashburn

HERE WE GO 'ROUND THE CONSTRUCTION SITE,
THE CONSTRUCTION SITE, THE CONSTRUCTION SITE...
...ON A SUNNY MONDAY MORNING!

Mother Goose may be busy looking for the muffin man, but Builder Goose is already hard at work down at the construction site, and he has an array of tools and vehicles at hand to help.

But then, all good little construction books have colorful pictures of dump trucks, steam shovels, and front loaders. Boni Ashburn's brand-new Builder Goose: It's Construction Rhyme Time! (Sterling, 2012) takes a new tack on the "Can We Build It?" theme. Ashburn has versified the construction process from preliminary plans to final cleanup with a charming re-write of Mother Goose's old-fashioned manuscript, coming up with wry little modern rhymes that get the job done with verve and bounce.

"SING A SONG OF GARBAGE.
A BUCKETFUL OF TRASH.
FOUR AND TWENTY LOADS OF IT,
READY TO BE MASHED!

Everything from wheelbarrows to heavy graders, excavators to an (itsy-bitsy) skid steer are celebrated in the rhyme scheme and meter of famous children's rhymes, familiar favorites from "This Old Man" (This Little Forklift,) as "Little Jack Horner (Little Jack Hammer) do their thing in the appealing primary-color illustrations of Sergio di Georgi, giving this new book for preschool construction fans a joyful day on the job site. Pair this one with Sherri Rinker's dynamic new best-seller, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, (see my review here) for a skyscraper of a storytime!