If Wishes Were Puppies.... Puppy Truck by Brian Pinkney

CARTER WANTED A PUPPY....

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride...." goes the old proverb.

But Carter's wish doesn't get him his snuggly puppy.

HE GOT A TRUCK.

It's a nice truck, and Carter decides to make the best of his gift--in his own way. He clips a leash just behind the truck's cab and walks the truck to the park.

But that's not all. When a gray squirrel frisks across the walkway, the truck gives chase.

Vroom beep bark!

And as an intrigued girl watches in amazement from a park bench, Carter tries to rein in his puppy truck pet. But it shakes off the leash and disappears out of sight.

But the watching girl points out where it's hiding in the bushes, and Carter grabs his puppy truck, and just as he is about to pull it into his lap, his truck does a wheelie and zooms away, but not before Carter climbs on the truck and goes along on the ride. It's Squirrel 1, Puppy Truck 0.

Back home Carter and pet chomp some supper, splish splash in the bath, and catch some Zzzzzzs in Carter's bed.

And when Carter and his puppy truck go back to the park the next day, he discovers the girl, already digging in the sand box, and now she too has a pet--a pussy cat power shovel with a vroom, a bark, and a MEOW.

Magic or imagination, the Caldecott-winning Brian Pinkney's latest picture book, Puppy Truck (Atheneum Books, 2019) makes a standout read-aloud and a book preschoolers will love to "read" to themselves, complete with sound effects. Pinkney's striking, flowing illustrative style, composed of bold black lines and dabs of primary colors, adds to the exuberance of this story of wish-fulfillment fantasy.