Little Yellow Truck

PreS-K—Promising very important jobs for his red dump truck, green flatbed, blue concrete mixer, and little yellow pickup, Riley gets everyone in the lumberyard excited. The project turns out to be a playground; all of the big construction vehicles play their parts excavating, cleaning, and building. Everyone except for the little yellow truck. He's worried that he is too small to help at all, until the very end when Riley loads him up with trees and flowers to make the playground beautiful. The colorful, anthropomorphized trucks are sure to catch the attention of young listeners, but the wordy story distracts from the appealing premise. A skilled reader may be able to omit some of the unnecessary words and instead focus on the delightful onomatopoetic parts like the "Bang, clang, smack, whack" of fence building.