The unsung four-wheel hero of this fabulous picture book does not even appear in the spotlight on the opening page. But that is part of the delicious puzzle for preschoolers.
"The city is full of brave trucks," Stephen Savage (Little Tug) begins. A golden halo encircles a red truck, a green truck and a blue truck, all with wide window eyes and smiles in lieu of front fenders. The next wordless double-page spread shows skyscrapers bathed in sunrise orange. Amid dull brown vehicles that match the streets, toddlers will quickly pick out the blue, red and green trucks traveling the wide avenues. One at a time, Savage sings their praises ("The bucket truck fixes a power line," accompanies the green truck; the red one, naturally, "puts out a blaze"). "The garbage truck? He just collects the trash." The white truck empties a dumpster in a gray alley, the glowing city at his back. But when it begins to snow... the white truck transforms.
Savage captures the magic of a city snowfall with a nearly three-dimensional image of snowflakes flitting like confetti against the light of a street lamp ("It snows and snows and snows"). The "brave trucks" now sport frowns, their wheels buried in snowdrifts. When the garbage truck uses a garage the way Clark Kent uses a telephone booth, he emerges as Supertruck! "He digs out the west side. He digs out the east side." The brave trucks resume their work, but the children know who saved the city. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness