The Big Red Truck

By Stephen Schlossberg

The Big Red Truck is a charming children's picture book that follows the imaginative adventures of a young boy in Spotsylvania. On a typical Saturday, the boy transforms his red tricycle into a mighty big red truck, embarking on a journey filled with excitement and fantasy. From driving a big rig and lunching at a diner to experiencing mishaps like overturning his vehicle and encounters with the police, his daydreams are vivid and entertaining. Meanwhile, his parents perceive only the real-world events: a tricycle ride, peanut butter sandwiches, a minor spill, and a fast-pedaling child. The story beautifully captures the essence of childhood imagination and the contrast between a child's fantasy world and adult perceptions. Illustrated with muted colored-pencil drawings by the author, the book offers a nostalgic and humorous look at a child's creative play.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565660528
• ISBN13: 9781565660526
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Lickle Pub Inc
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.5" x 0.5" x 10.5"
• Age Range: 5 years and under

Customer Reviews

remembered through the generations

Big Red Truck is a favorite. Colored pencil illustrations by the author are wonderful and tickle kids. Children like it, adults roar with laughter. Daydreaming is not stifled but chores are done. A boy can dream big, cross the country and be home for supper. This is a slice of normal home life.

An apparently underrated exploration of young imagination.

I have read several professional reviews of "Big Red Truck." To me, these reviews seem oddly unresponsive to a wonderful book about a boy's take on an ordinary Saturday in Spotsylvania. Maybe the subdued colors (reminding me of my own youthful efforts in colored pencil), and the gently expressionistic art work, failed to attract the reviewers' eyes.To me, these subtleties are strengths, because I can take renewed interest in the book each time I read it to my toddler son. "Big Red Truck" has grown on me, my son, and my wife over the course of several months of library checkouts. I look forward no less to reading it to my daughter when she's old enough.This book has the same kind of humor (a refrigerator with a giant "Behemoth" logo, for example), nostalgia, and straightforward mystery that makes "In the Night Kitchen" so charming. Unlike that acknowledged classic of dream-time, though, "Big Red Truck" is a carefull! y controlled daydream. It's an outdoor story, set in a recognizable American landscape on the border between the rural and the suburban. A musical analogue would be the sophisticated simplicity of Pat Metheny's dreamier music.And, unlike "Night Kitchen" -- but like Maurice Sendak's superb earlier work -- at the heart of "Big Red Truck" there is an honest, significant, even dramatic interaction between parents and child.

Shenandoah boy turns trike and chores into rig and route.

A Walter Mitty-like toddler drives a big red tractor trailer, lunches at a diner, overturns his rig, and gets pulled over by a police car. His bemused parents see only a red tricycle, peanut butter sandwiches, a spill, and a fast pedaling boy. Charming pastel illustrations from an intriguing, slightly fish-eyed, perspective