Book Review: Little Blue Truck

Some of the best gifts are hand-me-downs. This book was a baby shower gift from good friends. Their boys had gotten good use and loved the book so they passed it along to us. I am somewhat ashamed that it has taken me this long to review this book. There was a several week period where Juniper would only sit through this book before bed. If I tried reading any others, she would lose interest. 

The story involves all of the great elements of a good book. Interesting characters, excitement, relationships and a moral. All that in only 29 pages. The writing is very sing-songy, which I really enjoy. There is one line though that always throws me off and seems like a miss on the writers behalf. But other than that the story is awesome!

I’ll spare retelling the specifics, but you should definitely buy this book. There is a reason it is a best seller! I really want to jump into the details below.

Book Construction:

A larger board book, in both dimensions and thickness. This does make it a little harder for little people to pick this up and carry it but that is a minor detail.

Illustration:

Some of the illustrations in this book I LOVE! Then there are other spreads that seem forced and disjointed. Overall the style and artistry is beautiful. There is such a fun mix between realism and abstraction, it is a nice balance.

The parts that bother me are the spreads that “break” the flow. Most of the art spans the full spread but when there is an errant page that doesn’t it seems jarring. However, I am willing to overlook this because the variety of vantage points throughout add an element of interest.

Typography:

This to me seems blah. It fits but seems forced in many places. It uses a quirky, thick slab serif, but the sizes and colors are all over the place. There also isn’t a consistent placement throughout. Sometimes the type is kinetic while other times it is set poetic.

But with all of those negative things to say I love the story and cadence enough to forge through.

Number of Reader Voices:

12. One narrator, two trucks, and nine animal sounds.