Drive by Nathan Clement (Boyds Mills/Front Street, $16.95, 9781590785171/1590785177, 40 pp., ages 2-8, February 2008)
If Smash! Crash! (Shelf Awareness, January 16, 2008) captured the energy of boys in demolition mode, this debut picture book from Clement evokes that childlike sense of awe when faced with a 10-wheel semi. Narrated by the son of a truck driver, the poetic text begins, "Daddy leaves before I wake up," and the truck's giant tires are visible through the boy's window. His father checks on his sleeping son before getting behind the wheel. The sun rises as the man pulls away with a cargo load ("When his trailer is full,/ he's ready to drive"). Clement's sleek computer graphics seem ideally suited to the long stretches of highway and the gleaming red cab of the truck. Even though the narrative follows the father, the illustrations keep a child reader's interest. The text, "He's on the move," for instance, depicts the red truck in the passing lane, dwarfing a lime-green Volkswagen bug with a black lab in the passenger seat, its pink tongue protruding through the window. On the next spread, "but always says hello," refers to the father blowing his horn at the gestural request of a child rider in a passing gold car; on the highway's meridian, sunflowers in the same buttery shade nicely balance the composition. The book winds down with a soothing pastoral scene of the red truck driving through quiltlike fields to the boy's home, where the narrator and his dog play in the yard. Both a love song to the open road and an appreciation for a father's return, this book appeals to readers on multiple levels and marks an auspicious start for Clement.--Jennifer M. Brown
