Race from A to Z: With Audio Recording

by Jon Scieszka, David Shannon (Illustrator), Loren Long (Illustrator), David Gordon (Illustrator)

Overview

Like the New York Times bestselling Smash! Crash! and Truckery Rhymes, this truck-tastic alphabet adventure is full of creativity, fun, and truck-loving action!

Honk if you love trucks—and get ready to play with your As, Bs, and construction Cs! This rollicking, boisterous, bold, concept picture book features your favorite Trucktown friends as they race around town, pointing out quirky items and actions that incorporate all the letters of the alphabet. Rev your engines and get ready for rowdy fun from A to Z!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442453210
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	10/21/2014
Series:	Jon Scieszka's Trucktown Series
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	48
Lexile:	AD450L (what's this?)
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jon Scieszka is the creator of Trucktown, including the New York Times bestselling Smash, Crash!, and the author of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, the Time Warp Trio series, Caldecott Honor Book The Stinky Cheese Man, and many other books that inspire kids to want to read. He has worked as an elementary school teacher and is the founder of GuysRead.com, a literacy initiative for boys.

David Shannon has written and illustrated numerous award winning picture books including Duck on a Bike, the Caldecott Honor Book No David!, How I Learned to be a Pirate, and Good Boy Fergus. He is also one of the collaborative illustrators in Jon Scieszka’s Trucktown series.  David lives with his wife and his daughter in Los Angeles.

Loren Long illustrated President Barack Obama’s Of Thee I Sing; the newest version of The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper; Madonna’s second picture book, Mr. Peabody’s Apples; Nightsong by Ari Berk; Frank McCourt’s Angela and the Baby Jesus; Love by Matt de la Peña; and If I Was the Sunshine by Julie Fogliano. He also wrote and illustrated the Otis series and was part of the Design Garage for Jon Scieszka’s Trucktown series. Loren’s work has appeared in Time, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic. He lives with his wife and two sons in Cincinnati, Ohio. Visit him at LorenLong.com.

David Gordon is the author and illustrator of the critically acclaimed The Ugly Truckling and The Three Little Riggs. His first book for Simon & Schuster was the adorable Smitten. He has done concept work for Pixar’s Toy Story; Toy Story 2; A Bug’s Life; Monsters, Inc.; and Cars; as well as Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants. He also did character design work on Blue Sky’s Robots. He lives in New York City. Visit him at IllustratorRanch.com.

Editorial Reviews

2014-07-29
Another in Scieszka's Trucktown series, this one features a boisterous truck race from A to Z. "C is for Construction, Curbs and Cones and Crashes! / D is for Dan Dump Truck, who Dumps his Dirt then Dashes!" While not all letters feature such density of alliteration, Scieszka manages to pack quite a lot in. He also takes advantage of the world he's built to upend some conventions. In many alphabet books, the text observes, Q often stands for "quiet," but "[i]n Trucktown Q means ‘quite' "—as in "QUITE LOUD!" The one letter that seems off track is X: "Look out—X! A Xylophone? No one knows just why scary Big Rig has one." Since silliness is the name of Scieszka's game here, that's OK. Z is for Izzy the ice cream truck, who wins the race. The digital illustrations comically animate each truck with google-eyed faces, expressions and appropriate characteristics: Big Rig sports a scowl, two hornlike exhaust pipes and a fearsome grille (he can play the xylophone all day if he wants); Wrecking Crane Rosie has a pink wrecking ball and an amiable expression. They really rev up the action. The droves of truck fans will love identifying the individual trucks as they race and cheer at the ending. Clever fun, swooshing with motion and energy, this latest in the series will keep readers racing their engines for more. (Alphabet picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews