Beep! Little Blue Truck Leads the Way by Alice Schertle

LITTLE BLUE TRUCK ROLLED INTO THE CITY.

"BEEP!" SAID BLUE. "THE CITY IS HIGH."

Rolling through the countryside, with dawn just breaking, and a load of lettuces in his loadbed, Little Blue Truck is happily on an adventure. He's making a delivery to a restaurant deep in the city, and as the sky fills up with skyscrapers, the road he's had all to himself suddenly turns to a multi-laned tangle.

There are vans making early-morning deliveries, police cars shrieking "WOOEEEEE!", a busy street sweeper, and a double-decker bus--even a long limousine carrying the mayor to a  very important speech--and all of them are trying to get ahead of all the others. Little Blue's little "beep" seems lost in all the racket of a busy city starting its day.

But all this hustle and bustle and hurrying to get ahead has its problems. Soon all the vehicles find themselves in a jam. The mayor is stewing; he can't be late for his super-important speech!

"MOVE IT, LITTLE BEEPER!" ONE YELLS.

But Blue knows just what to do. As everyone pushes to be first, he has another plan.

"STOP!" YELLED BLUE.

"YOU MIGHT BE FAST AND I MIGHT BE SLOW!

BUT ONE AT A TIME IS THE WAY TO GO"

In her delightful sequel to her 2008 hit, Little Blue Truck, author Alice Schertle's rhymes are just as charmingly bouncy,  as her hero, a big-eyed, good-hearted little farm truck, ventures into the big city, where larger, more impressive vehicles try to shove him aside in their race to GET THERE! But in this latest, Little Blue Truck Leads the Way (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012), common sense and cooperation save the day, with even the mayor climbing into the tiny truck's loadbed along with the lettuces to second Little Blue's homely advice and direct traffic. With Jill McEllmurry's appealing little anthropomorphic vehicles done up in bright and jolly gouache primary colors, they all get to arrive at their own happy ending, especially young readers who will love to read both books.