Truckery Rhymes by Jon Scieszka

Truckery Rhymes by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by David Shannon, Loren Long, and David Gordon

Rating: 5 stars

This is a great, great book for boys!  I'm bummed I've only just found it.  Jon Scieszka is the creator of the blog Guys Read, a blog created to help boys become life-long readers.  I'm all for that!

In this book, he simply but cleverly rewrites all the classic nursery rhymes to make them dirty and funny and...truck-y!  And David Shannon, Loren Long, and David Gordon add some super cute, sometimes silly, sometimes funny illustrations to compliment the nursery rhyme.

Here are a few examples:

Patty Cake, Patty Cake 

Patty cake, patty cake, Dumper Dan.
Dump me some dirt as fast as you can.
Slide it and drop it and mark it DD,
And pile it in the lot for Melvin and me. 

Jack and Kat 

Jack and Kat raced up the hill
To burn some crazy rubber.
Jack zoomed down,
Right through Trucktown,
And Kat came scraping after.

This is a fantastic birthday book for a 2- or 3- year old boy (or truck-obsessed girl).

Jon Scieszka has written a few Trucktown books after this; they are a great preschool/kindergarten series you should definitely know about if, like me, you've got a boy or two in your charge.  We've read a bunch of them and like them...check them out here.