Don't Forget the Lights! Little Blue Truck's Christmas by Alice Schertle

Christmastide is near, and Blue Truck is loaded with cheer!

Well, he will be when he fills his load bed with Christmas greenery. And what does Little Blue Truck do as Christmas draws nearer?

FIVE TREES READY
TO TAKE A RIDE.
HOW MANY TREES
WILL FIT INSIDE?

Stopping by Toad's Trees, Blue counts them up as Toad loads them up, and one by one Little Brown counts them down as he delivers them to his best friends.

Who needs a tree? Goose honks for Blue to stop and unload tree #5. It's a big one, and Goose needs it as her ten goslings, in festive red hats, climb up to perch on its branches.

At her barn with its jolly colored fringe of lights, Cow moos for the tallest tree, and now Blue has only three.

As befits her size, Pig orders up a fat one, and Goat selects a short one to hoist high to her three-storied stalls for her three kids. Now Little Blue Truck has only one evergreen left in the load bed.

Who will get the very last tree?

"BEEP! BEEP, BEEP!
THIS ONE'S FOR ME!"

And kids' eyes will shine as with the last page turn, Little Blue Truck's tree comes to life with its own blinking, twinkling lights for Blue and Toad to enjoy. In her just-published Little Blue Truck's Christmas (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014) veteran holiday storyteller Alice Schertle's scintillatingly simple verses and illustrator Jill McElmurray's bedecked anthropomorphic little truck and seasonal scenes provide the perfect kickoff to the holiday fun, especially when it's time for trimming the tree. Of course, author and artist take the opportunity to provide a bit of preschool counting practice in the process. The publisher even kindly provides instructions for replacing the batteries for Little Blue's lights so that they may sparkle for many a season.

Schertle and McElmurry's other terrific Little Blue Truck books are the best-selling Little Blue Truck Board Book and Little Blue Truck Leads the Way board book (see reviews here).

Loading by the Letter: Alphabet Trucks by Samantha Vamos

ALPHABET TRUCKS!

A IS FOR APPLE TRUCK
CARTING PRODUCE TO THE STORE.

B IS FOR BOX TRUCK
WITH A ROLLING REAR DOOR.

Some like their alphabet costumed as cozy critters. Some desire alphabetical dinosaurs. But in Samantha Vamos' Alphabet Trucks (Charlesbridge Press, 2013), the letters (upper and lower case as well) show up on jaunty trucks rolling down the road.

There are some familiar haulers in their proper order--Ice cream trucks, Tow trucks, Dump trucks, Pickup trucks--but there are some more exotic vehicles for the customers' consideration.

E IS FOR ELEVATOR TRUCK
RAISE THE FORK LIFT--UP IT GOES!

F IS FOR FUEL TRUCK
WITH A METER, PUMP AND HOSE.

There are plenty of unusual trucks to see at work--knuckle-boom trucks, quint trucks with five different gadgets to deploy, even an X-Ray truck bringing the lab to rural lands, and of all things, a zipper truck, lifting and lowering those temporary barriers along the roads. For youngsters who like to learn their letters on wheels, Vamos' clever quatrains and artist Ryan O'Rourke's jolly and bright toters and haulers, lifters and loaders, movers and mixers, are just right to get young gearheads on the road to reading.

Convoy this one with Brian Floca's top-of-the-line Racecar Alphabet (Ala Notable Children's Books. Younger Readers (Awards)) Jerry Pallota's The Construction Alphabet Book and Audrey and Bruce Woods' Alphabet Rescue.