The sky is full of stars

Alongside Donald Crews' Truck (1980), totally flat as an evocation; alongside any number of other books (reaching back to The Great Big Car and Truck Book), extremely limited as a vehicle of information. We see assorted delivery trucks, for instance, each labeled; and then, opposite, small uncaptioned pictures (not always easy to make out) of things in them or being delivered from them. We see assorted trucks that lift things, each labeled too; and then, overleaf, three little pictures of each of them lifting what it lifts. There are also trucks that push things, pull things, etc. The text is as banal as any very few words can be (""Trucks do a lot of work!""; ""Everywhere you look--trucks on the move""); the pictures clearly delineate each truck (they are also distinctly colored), so that a child could learn to recognize some of the more esoteric kinds (a power grapple, say, or a backhoe). But this has no more imagination or extension, really, than an aircraft-spotter's manual. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.