Book 278

I'm a Truck, by Dennis Shealy, illustrated by Bob Staake, Little Golden Books, 2006.

My five-year-old son has reached the "I love trucks" stage of his life.  Actually, he has reached the "I love to take apart trucks and leave the pieces where Mommy steps on them" stage of his life.  I'm fine with the "I love trucks" stage, but I'm hoping the other one will end soon.

Because I love my son, and he loves trucks and books, I bought him some new truck books.  This was one of them. 

The text was rather long, but engaging.  It managed to keep his attention all the way through, although that might have been because I sounded like I was starring in a bad spaghetti western when I read it.  Usually, books written in dialect are right up there with children's stories written in a forced rhyme on my list of things I don't like to read out loud, but Dennis Shealy did a pretty good job keeping the dialect light and funny.

The artwork, of course, was perfect.  It was perfectly beautiful.  It was perfectly colorful.  It was perfectly elegant.  And it was perfectly humorous.  And it was (almost) enough to forgive this book for recalling my high school drama days.