Both of my kids were definitely special interest kids. My daughter went through a phase where every book she read had to be about animals. My son had a phase where every book had to be about fire trucks, which has led to at least 10, maybe 15, total fire truck books in our house. That's a lot of fire truck books. Eventually you own every single one that's available to buy and you need to go out on a tangent into more general vehicle territory. And that's exactly what's being targeted with Little Blue Truck: the little kid who's interested in cars, and it could fit for any type of car. It's not a construction vehicle or a race car or a fire truck, just a cute little truck, and we get appearances by the other vehicles and animals along the way. This intro book is maybe not the best of the best (we'll eventually review what I think is the very best Little Blue Truck), but it sets the tone for exactly what the series should be about.
Kid engagement has always been extremely high too. Even my daughter, who never really loved cars the way my son does, loves animals, and there's animals in these books as well. She thinks they're cute, and I think she likes the sing-songiness of the story. My son, obsessed with fire trucks, doesn't complain that this book doesn't have a fire truck in it. I think his position is something like: hey, I love fire trucks, but this is just a good book. I'll sit down quietly and listen to this book.
I give it a five out of five and a Dad's pick. The Dad's picks are the ones where I'd give the book to somebody even if they already have it on the shelf, because you read it so much you might need a second copy. Although I'll say this is a pretty well-built board book. We have a lot of not-well-built board books in this house, and despite how many reads this one has gotten, it's actually held up really, really well.
It never feels like it's rhyming first
Uh oh, Reference Moth is missing. In his place is Substitute Spider, who looks incredibly concerned about the whereabouts of Reference Moth.
There's a lot of really good rhythmic reading books out there. Dr. Seuss, of course. We've already talked about the Llama Llama books. Little Blue Truck follows in that mold, but I think it does something a little different. When you read it, it doesn't feel like it's trying to be rhyming first. There's a story to tell, and it's not shoehorning in words just to rhyme; it just happens that as you're reading the story, oh, there's a nice, rhythmic, poetic read to the book.
Even from the beginning: "Horn went beep, engine purred, friendliest sounds you ever heard." That's almost like the cold opening we get for a lot of the Berenstain Bears books with their "Down a Sunny Dirt Road, Deep in Bear Country," and I love how almost all the books in this series open with it, or at least give some subtle nod to that initial opening.
It took a little while to get all of these animal voices down. It's not easy to give goat and sheep totally unique sounds.
Fully performative at this point
The thing I appreciate the most is that it's such a joy to read, especially after multiple rereads. For every book in the collection where I've built up some internal dad voice, some internal dad cadence, this is the book where it's ironed down the most. This book is fully performative at this point, and it's performed nearly the same way every single time. Every single word gets the same inflection, the same pause, and all the animal noises get their unique treatment.
And I think that makes it something special. When I pull this book off the shelf, it feels like the excitement before somebody's about to perform a show. Oh, I'm really excited to perform. I feel like I get that reading a kid's book to my kids at night. It sounds ridiculous, but it's just the case, and it's consistent across all the initial Little Blue Trucks that we've read a million times.
Am I allowed to give a six out of five?
On rereads, I really wish I could go above five, but we'll call it five out of five even though it should be a six. I've read this book, I want to say, a thousand times. Maybe more, maybe less; you lose track. And it's never not been enjoyable. Every time it comes out there are no complaints on my end to read this one again, even for kids that are now definitely too old for the target audience. It might come out from time to time just to be nostalgic for some four year olds. This is one of my all time favorite young kid books.
He shows by example
The last piece I really enjoy is that they do add some overall point to the story, but it's not too heavy-handed or judgmental. This is different than Goodnight Moon, where it just takes the rhythmic poetic aspect and lets it stand alone. This doesn't do that, and I don't think it can necessarily; there are rare books out there that are really able to pull that off. I think it's good to have the plot to go through the book, even if it's maybe a little bit of a recycled moral.
Little Blue is never coming in with an uh-uh-uh, this is how you're supposed to do it. He's very unassuming and he shows by example. The dump truck in this book has "big important things to do," so he zooms right by the farm and then gets stuck in the mud. Little Blue, as he gets zoomed by, isn't too concerned about it, and when he hears the dump stuck, he goes over there and helps out. Then the animals, who have a lot of respect for Little Blue, help Little Blue out. Side note: when the dump first gets stuck, "nobody heard, or nobody cared." The animals weren't there to help the dump truck; they were there to help Blue, and the dump truck even recognizes that and calls it out. I thought that was funny.
Jill's artistic specialty might be in drawing animal behinds. This is top notch in all ways though - the indifference of the Dump's plight to these animals is palpable.
So the dump gets free and says, essentially, I was not even particularly nice to you, but here you came and helped me out; maybe next time I'll try to be more friendly. Friends help out friends. Depending on the age you're reading this at, your kid might be deep in the "I want to do it myself" stage, that level of independence and autonomy that comes with going from baby to toddler, and the idea here is that no, you can accept help. It's okay. Be friendly.
If I'm docking the message a point, it's because this is probably one of the more generic morals of the batch. There's a million and one books out there about how it's good to be friendly and accept help; every single PJ Masks book hammers on that point in a much more heavy handed way. But it's still nice, and there's a little talking point at the end if you want one, about how maybe that dump truck shouldn't have been zooming by and could have said hi along the way. And then we get the nice closeout where the dump goes on his way and the animals all pop into Little Blue and get a ride home. Beep, beep, beep.
Moar animal butts please.
Toad was such a charismatic character in the first book, they decided to make him a good sidekick in all future books.
Jill McElmurry set the tone
The other aspect that's so enjoyable about these books: the illustrations are just the perfect match. They're really playful, drawn in this somewhat rustic, surreal style, but very much designed for kids. On the very opening page you get Toad winking as Little Blue goes by. Little Blue himself is designed in a way where he's not too assuming. He doesn't really make facial expressions the way a lot of cars do; I don't think we've ever seen him with a mad expression. Surprised is the most we ever get from Little Blue. We do get some angry, I haven't got time eyes from the dump as he blasts through, though.
All of the animals are really enjoyable to look at as we get their introductions. They're making their noises all huddled together, the chick under the chicken, under the goat, under the horse, and then the duck sitting on top of the horse. Very fun, very playful.
And there's a lot of pictures that just stand out in my mind as particularly funny. Then when everybody pushes to get the trucks unstuck, all the animals go flying in the air as they release out of the mud, except for Toad, who's just standing there with his one paw out. That was apparently just enough to push them over.
Hopefully Pig didn't hurt its back after this.
The illustrations are easily five out of five. Jill McElmurry really set the tone for these books with the way she illustrated them, and it's this distinctive style of drawing animals and cars that sets them apart from other children's books and makes you really feel like, hey, I'm reading Little Blue Truck.
