Construction Site: Garbage Crew to the Rescue!

June 15, 2024
The beloved Construction Site team gives a neighborhood a restorative facelift. This time Bulldozer, Dump Truck, and company are confronted with a job that's not quite in their wheelhouse. Instead of demolishing and building afresh, they're going to renovate a suburban neighborhood that's fallen into disrepair. What to do with the "heaps of rubbish" and "junk piles everywhere"? The usual crew calls for help, and soon an array of specialists parade in: Roll Off Truck, Container Delivery Truck, Flatbed, Skid Steer, Side Loaders, Rear Loaders, Front Loaders, and Garbage Trucks. Their arrival is prefaced by their aroma (they are the Garbage Crew, after all), but still they're "a fleet of heroes!" Our old Construction Site friends help sort the mounds of accumulated trash for recycling or composting, and the Garbage Crew hauls it away. Cooperation is the instinctive rule; everyone does their part. While the removal is underway, construction begins: The Construction Crew installs new windows and doors, plants trees, and paves streets. Some trucks are given male or female pronouns, but they don't have external gender signifiers. The verse is still propulsive, with a few gear shifts but no stalling, and detailed illustrations by series regular Ford have an old-fashioned charm. One fascinating cross-section of a garbage truck lets readers glimpse its internal workings. Still going strong more than a decade after they made their debut, these vehicles never run out of oomph. This series keeps rolling along, delivering just what fans want. (Picture book. 3-5)

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September 1, 2024

PreS-K-Rinker and Ford, no strangers to two preschooler favorites-vehicles and construction-celebrate surprising heroes at the site: the garbage crew. The larger project is the renovation of a row of pretty little homes, now fallen into disarray. But the tractors and backhoes can't handle the piles of garbage that are everywhere. Sanitation trucks are brought in, the usual stinky jokes are made, but Roll-Off Truck is not messing around as it sets a large dumpster into place. Container Delivery Truck leaves smaller dumpsters so that garbage now has a place to go. Flatbed and Skid Steer bring and set up large plastic garbage cans, and Front Loader makes a cameo, getting the dumpsters ready for another round. Builders and painters descend upon the homes and fix them up; an author's note covers the inspiration for the book, which was renovating her old house. Children will be ready to point and name, and while the rhyme doesn't always scan, the pure cheerfulness and goodwill of the endeavor keeps the pages turning. Ford's illustrations, from sun-up to sundown, include funny details and friendly ones, as when the vehicles collaborate on a goal. VERDICT For the construction shelf, for story hours, for busy toddlers to pore over, this is one rescue that everyone will want in on.-Kimberly Olson Fakih

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