Little Blue Truck Board book – January 1, 2009

This is a top 3 board book for my husband, son, and I. It is so so cute. Little Blue Truck is a super friendly truck that always makes time to say hello to eveyrone as he gets to where he is going.Because he is so friendly and kind, he has made many animal friends who also greet him with their signature species sound (Blue says Beep, Frog says Croak, Piggy says Oink, etc...). Along comes a rude Dump Truck who is too busy to say hello to anyone and wants them out of his way. As he rushes by he ends up getting stuck in the mud. It is so fitting because he is very much a stick in the mud. He calls for help, but nobody hears him (or nobody cares). Little Blue Truck heard him and came to his rescue, but in the process, he got stuck too. Blue calls for help and the animals can't get there fast enough. They all push Blue who pushes the Dump Truck and finally get them all free. The Dump Truck has learned an important lesson about being kind and befriending others, and that you need friends because when you get in trouble they will be there for you.I absolutely love how simple the story is all while giving a very strong and important message. It is all about slowing down, enjoying those around you, and the importance of kindness. On top of it being a great story, the art is fantastic. It has a great feel of nostalgia and whimsy. It isn't as vibrant as many of our other board books, but that style of art wouldn't fit this.It is also great because the rhythm and rhyming work very well and are fun to read. My son absolutely adores all the animal sounds and we have a lot of fun with that.I would call this a must have in any little one's book collection.

Our boys (ages 4 & 2) LOVE this book, and so do we. We've probably read it 40+ times now. It has a great rhyming cadence that is catchy and fun. Although we usually strive for animal noise realism, this book reads better if you just say the words instead of imitating the sounds. Having been through it so much, we've discovered a lot of little life lessons to be learned through it. It makes it enjoyable and worthwhile for parents to read to their children again and again. Don't point them all out at once though!* The animals are kind to those who are kind to them.* The animals are unkind to the dump truck who is unkind to them. (These are the natural inclinations of little children.)* The little blue truck is ALWAYS kind, even to the dump truck who is mean to him. (This is hard to do, but what we desire for our children to do. And, he's more than just "nice" but actually helps him.)* The dump truck's attitude was changed by the little blue truck's undeserved kindness more than by the animals giving him what he deserved.* The dump truck thought what he was doing was more important than being kind to those around him, and his pushy attitude gets him stuck in trouble. We teach our children that people are more important than things.* After the animals come to help, everyone does their part. Each contribution matters, and it couldn't have been done without any one of them, even the big green toad!* Even while helping, the dump truck is covering them all with mud. Sometimes helping is hard, dirty work. But they are diligent to push through it until the work is done.This is not a silly children's book that you would grow tired of reading. I would recommend this for any age, and it's definitely become one of our family's favorites. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have. :-)

This book was my son's favorite for his first three years. I read it so much to him that I had it memorized and we had to buy a second book because the first one fell apart. The pictures are great and give a lot of personality to the Little Blue Truck, the animals, and the Dump Truck. The rhyming text is wonderful and I've read that reading stories that rhyme or nursery rhymes to children in their first couple years of life helps increase language comprehension and association more effectively than non-rhyming stories because they are able to respond to rhythm and tone before they understand language. This is a lovely book for that purpose. It not only rhymes but also has animal sounds which my son loved.The premise is that the little blue truck winds his way through the countryside beeping his horn to say hi to all the animals and the animals say hi back with their own sounds (baa, maa, cluck, peep, naaayy, etc.). Then the big Dump Truck comes barreling through in a rush and gets stuck in the mud. The blue truck tries to help but gets stuck too. Then all the animals hear the beep of the Little Blue Truck and come to rescue him and the Dump. The sweet moral of the story is if you help others they will in turn help you when you need it. I think the other underlying moral for adults is to slow down and be aware of your relationships and don't just be so focused on yourself. We are a community and we all need each other. Anyway, that is a very underlying current and is certainly not the intent of the story. Don't hesitate to buy this book for all the babies you know!