Daddy Love! If My Love Were a Firetruck by Luke Reynolds

If my love were a firetruck,
Its sirens would flash all night!

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," said the poet, and in Luke Reynolds' If My Love Were a Fire Truck: A Daddy's Love Song (Doubleday and Company, 2017), his "Daddy's Love Song" counts up the ways a father loves a child in big, strong metaphors. He loves as loudly as a trumpeting elephant, echoing across the landscape, as bright as a blazing rocket soaring out of sight, as loud as a race car's "vroom," as loudly as a brass band's "boom."

He protects his son like a knight's shield fends off a dragon, like a bear's big hug that lasts all night long.

But after all that daddy love, with its clash and bang and roar and vroom, it comes down to a sweet snuggle, one in which they both fall gently asleep, with the boy resting on his father's chest, cuddling his firetruck as he falls asleep, with the moon at the window.

It's dream time now.
I'll meet you there.

My love for you
Goes everywhere.

And isn't that just how a parent loves a child, to the moon and back? Lucas Reynolds' rhyming text makes good use of his manly metaphors, but ends with a warm and tender closing, skillfully illustrated by Artist Jeff Mack, who handles both the mighty images and the sweet affection that boy and father share. This is a heartfelt and heartwarming bedtime story especially for dads that lets fathers show just how they feel. Says the Wall Street Journal's reviewer, "Luke Reynolds offers extravagant metaphors for paternal affections . . . a series of tenderhearted comparisons matched with colorful, exuberant pictures by Jeff Mack."