Young children’s – more accurately, young boys’ – fascination with big machinery, cars, trucks, and “things that go” is well known in children’s book publishing, and Annick has launched a new series to cater to this young market. Load ’em Up Trucks, the first in the Mighty Wheels series, features a myriad of utility vehicles, from the everyday pickup to grapple trucks and transporters.

Debora Pearson, children’s book author and former editor of Owl magazine, provides an onomatopoeic rhythmic text that will appeal to her young audience. She attempts to link the various trucks from page to page, creating more of a story feel, though some of these transitions are awkward. Pearson’s text works closely with Ontario artist Chum McLeod’s drawings. McLeod’s illustrations are detailed and technically accurate, though they lack the immediate visual impact of similar books. Scholastic’s very successful My First Truck board book, for example, grabs its audience’s attention by using real photographs, and Byron Barton’s well-loved transportation board books (Trains; Trucks) employ basic colours and simple drawings boldly outlined in black. McLeod’s pastel palette seems washed-out in comparison. We also rarely see the trucks in action, and the drawings seem static.

The book’s style and format really gear it more to three-year-olds than one-year-olds, particularly since it comes only in paperback or cloth and not the hardier cardboard pages. However, given the insatiability of the toddler truck lover’s enthusiasm, Load ’em Up Trucks is guaranteed an audience.