Truck Board Book: A Caldecott Honor Award Winner (Caldecott Collection)

This book, a 1981 Caldecott Honor book, is a nearly wordless set of pictures that follow a red tractor-trailer truck across country as it makes a delivery. From the black of the end papers, Crews drops the reader immediately into the action as the story begins on the title page with the truck being loaded with colorful boxes of tricycles. From there, the truck begins its journey from New York through the Lincoln tunnel, passing truck stops and gas stations and enduring rain and traffic jams, until it crosses the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco where it unloads its cargo. The illustrations have an intense graphic quality, with sharp geometric shapes, heavy dark lines, and intense blocks of color. The style evokes the abstract shapes of road signs and intense colors of roadside attractions. The illustrations, printed on glossy paper, stretch across both pages and bleed to the edge of the page, drawing the reader further in to explore the pages. Children learning to read will be able to recognize many words in the road signs and on trucks and vans. Non-readers will enjoy spotting the red truck on each new page. The embedded storyline encourages children to follow a sequence of steps in a larger process, while the absence of words encourages children to elaborate on the action, making up their own stories to accompany the images.

I bought this book when my son was 18 months old. He had NO interest at all in sitting still to look at books. He took one look at all those TRUCKS and was transfixed. From the day I brought this book home he showed a greater interest in his other books and at 3 1/2 he is an avid "reader".

I wasn't sure whether or not my son would enjoy the textless book but it has quickly become his favorite book! It is so bright and colorful and encourages me to make up different stories each time I read it to him.

When I ask my 3 year old son Charlie to choose three books for bedtime reading, this book is invariably chosen from his truck shelf of books. The book documents a tractor trailer's trip, using signs, light signals and lots of traffic and highways. He loves it and so do I. This book also won a Caldecott Medal for illustrations when it was first published. Highly recommended.

This small children's book about a large delivery truck traveling on the highways is told without words and was a 1981 Caldecott Honor book (i.e., a runner-up to the Medal winner) for best illustrations in a children's book. Little children really enjoy following the truck to its final destination.