Van Dusen, Chris. Big Truck, Little Island. Chris Van Dusen, Illus. Picture Book. Candlewick, 05/2022. [32]pp. $17.99. 978-1-5362-0393-6. HIGH ADDITIONAL. GRADES PRE-3.
Rhyming couplets consisting of four lines per page offer this humorous story of a large truck getting stuck on the only road through a small island community and how the residents adapted by sharing their cars on either end of the truck until it could be removed. Based on an actual incident in Maine, the full-color gouache artwork exhibits Van Dusen’s signature airbrush-style cartoonish work seen in DiCamillo’s Mercy Watson series. The dramatic illustrations have one overhead scene of the island, showing that singular road and depicting the residents of various ethnicities, including white, Black, and Asian American children. The final page has a color photo of the truck and an author’s note about the incident. This fun story has energy, and the large size of the book and the dynamic artwork will appeal to a wide age range.
Penny Peck, San Jose State University, iSchool