Little Blue Truck's Christmas
(Holiday board book)

"Beep! Beep! Beep!/ December's here!/ Little Blue Truck/ is full of cheer." With a wreath affixed to his grill, Schertle's Little Blue Truck is ready for Christmas, and his tree-delivering duties let readers work on their counting skills. After five trees are loaded into the truck, various animal families claim them: " `Honk!' says the goose./ `The big one, please!'/ Now there are four/ green Christmas trees." Luckily, there's a tree left for the Little Blue Truck-one that glows with flashing twinkle lights on the final spread of this lively story. Up to age 3. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

PreS-Sturdy pages and a simple counting story build up to the grand finale. The text counts up to five and back down to one as Little Blue Truck delivers trees up and down the hills, through the snow to his animal friends. He keeps the last for himself---and it lights up. The book will appeal to fans of the series, and it could also be a fun, if slight, addition to a baby/preschool holiday storytimes with the big payoff of the lit tree.-Anne Connor, Los Angeles Public Library (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals. The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad's Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue's friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck's own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it's a gimmick, it's a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown. Little Blue's fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it's the sparkling lights on the truck's own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler's eyes. (Picture book. 2-5) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

"Beep! Beep! Beep!/ December's here!/ Little Blue Truck/ is full of cheer." With a wreath affixed to his grill, Schertle's Little Blue Truck is ready for Christmas, and his tree-delivering duties let readers work on their counting skills. After five trees are loaded into the truck, various animal families claim them: " ‘Honk!' says the goose./ ‘The big one, please!'/ Now there are four/ green Christmas trees." Luckily, there's a tree left for the Little Blue Truck—one that glows with flashing twinkle lights on the final spread of this lively story. Up to age 3. (Sept.)

PreS—Sturdy pages and a simple counting story build up to the grand finale. The text counts up to five and back down to one as Little Blue Truck delivers trees up and down the hills, through the snow to his animal friends. He keeps the last for himself—and it lights up. The book will appeal to fans of the series, and it could also be a fun, if slight, addition to a baby/preschool holiday storytimes with the big payoff of the lit tree.—Anne Connor, Los Angeles Public Library