Boo Boo’s Book List: Little Blue Truck

The Little Blue Truck is the Mister Rogers of automobiles. Instead of singing “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood” it beeps a friendly salutation to all the farm animals it passes on a meandering rural road. 

You know who doesn’t say ‘hi’ to everyone? Well, it’s the dump truck, who is in quite the hurry.

“I haven’t got time to pass the day with every duck along the way!” The dump truck announces. 

 

By the looks of it the dump truck is carrying asphalt or even coal as it hurries to its destination. We are clearly not meant to sympathize with the dump truck. But don’t tell the Little Blue Truck! The Little Blue Truck will go out of its way to help the dump truck when it gets in a jam…but will it be enough?

That is basically the premise of Little Blue Truck, written by Alice Schertle and illustrated by Jill McElmurry. Be friendly to your neighbors. Nothing is more important than your humanity (whether you’re a human or a truck), especially not your hurry.

 

I like this story for its message. It’s also got some fun rhyming and rhythm. Boo Boo likes the story because the main character is a truck and because there’s lots of animals. Boo Boo didn’t stand a chance against this book.

He first read Little Blue Truck when we were in Portland. We were eating at a cafe near my sister’s house and discovered a communal stash of books that came in handy while we waited for our food. This was the first and only book he laid his hot little hands on. 

We returned to this cafe at least two other times. Each time we picked up Little Blue Truck. After our last visit to the cafe the book found its way into our stroller and we didn’t realize it had ended up there until we were already back at my sister’s house. Boo Boo could have filched it or we could have absent-mindedly tossed it into the stroller. Either way we essentially stole it. So smooth are we at thievery that we ourselves don’t even know what we’re up to.

Luckily we noticed the stolen goods before we left Portland, and my sister promised to return the book. 

Fast forward a couple weeks to Boo Boo’s doctor’s appointment back in Brooklyn. Jer-bear and I really like Boo Boo’s pediatricians despite the fact that the billing department gets our insurance wrong every time. I think it’s mostly because they have great things to say about Boo Boo. And I don’t care if they say the same sweet nothings to all the other parents either. A good bedside manner is hard to find these days. 

Anyway, for whatever reason they give us a free book every other time we have an appointment. The free book for the most recent appointment was none other than Little Blue Truck. 

This book has occupied first place on the number one hits lists for weeks now. I have to hide it sometimes so that we can read other things. It is a very adorable book, but I’m very close to hitting a wall. In the past my idea of letting Boo Boo “choose” a book meant that I’d choose two books and he’d get to point at the one he wanted to read. Now I can’t even pretend that I don’t know which book he wants to read. He’ll ask for it by name before we get into bed. He’ll want to read it at random, at any time of the day.

“Blue, blue,” he’ll say. “Truck,” he’ll sometimes add for clarification, since we also have a blue crayon. 

Sometimes, if he feels he’s being unclear or if he thinks I’m being slow on the uptake (this is any situation where I cannot drop what I’m doing and read Little Blue Truck), he’ll grab the book and wave it at me. He’ll follow me around the apartment like an ambling broken record. “Blue. Blue. Truck? Truck? Blue.”

His tone is the same, he does not get angry; it’s almost as if he sees me as some large blundering beast that requires a lot of patience and compassion, kind of the same way I treat him like a tiny blundering beast that requires a lot of patience and compassion.  

At any rate, Boo Boo highly recommends this book, and if you have room for only one book in your life, let it be this one. It’ll be good for at least a month of bedtime stories.