Smash! Crash! (Jon Scieszka's Trucktown)

by Jon Scieszka (Author) David Gordon (Illustrator)

Smash! Crash! (Jon Scieszka's Trucktown)
Reading Level: 2nd − 3rd Grade

Welcome to Jon Scieszka's Trucktown, a brand-new preschool/kindergarten series that will come in more shapes, sizes, and formats than you can shake a bumper at.

It's a world where all the characters are trucks, all the stories are action driven, and boys and girls can imagine themselves in all their crazy, loud, funny, creative, excited, full-throttle glory! It's a world where we work at play, and we play at work...and no one's afraid to get dirty or be LOUD! And it all kicks off with Smash! Crash!

Best friends Jack and Dan are spending their day doing what they do best - smashing and crashing! All the while a strange shadow is following them around every corner...Who is this new addition to Trucktown? What does she want? Rhythmic, rollicking text will get kids' motors running and horns honking with each refrain! This is a book that begs to be read again and again!

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School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1  Scieszka teamed up with Shannon, Long, and Gordon to create a vibrant locale inhabited by personified vehicles. In this rollicking escapade, best pals Jack Truck and Dump Truck Dan are in the mood for smashing and crashing. They search for other friends to join in, including Cement Mixer Melvin, Monster Truck Max, and Grater Kat, but they are all too busy working. Although they interrupt their friends' tasks, Jack and Dan's smashing and crashing ultimately helps each truck get the job done. Throughout the story, the comrades continually flee from a menacing shadow. It turns out to be Wrecking Crane Rosie, who demands that they follow her; Jack and Dan are surprised to discover she needs their help to smash and crash a building. Told in brief catchy language, the story zooms along with plenty of pizzazz and action. Children will want to jump in and repeat the "Smash! Crash!" refrain. The winning full-color digital artwork adds plenty of personality to the characters and perfectly suits the text. A foldout page illustrates Rosie's imposing height, and endpapers introduce the cast. Entertaining as a group read-aloud or one-on-one selection, this book is sure to be a hit with truck lovers. Be on the lookout for more "Trucktown" adventures. - Lynn K. Vanca, Akron-Summit County Public Library, Richfield, OH

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission 

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review

Little gearheads will rally to this demolition derby, carried out by a gregarious all-motorized cast. Jack Truck, a red flatbed with chrome exhaust stacks, and best friend Dump Truck Dan, a blue guy with a yellow cab and mud flaps, adore the smash and crash of work in progress. To stir up noisy trouble, Jack and Dan charge Cement Mixer Melvin, who mixes sand and water for his job. No. I cant get messy, Melvin tells them, but with a smash-crash! mischievous Jack and Dan leave him covered in gray glop. The friends help Monster Truck Max stack orange-and-white oil drums, and they assist baby-pink Gabriella Garbage Truck (who has a teddy bear tied to her front bumper) in building a pirate fort from an old boat. Scieszka (Math Curse) revs readers up with gear-grinding noise and rowdy antics that echo Pixar's animated Cars. Celebrated illustrators Shannon, Long and Gordon embed mechanical shapes in their punchy display type, and they contribute panoramic vistas of Jack and Dans playgrounds: freshly dug foundations, vast junkyards and dusty lots with buildings slated for destruction. In a nod to Scieszka's Guys Read initiative, most of the machines are male, but the burliest of all is Wrecking Crane Rosie, so tall she requires a vertical gatefold. Heads and taillights above legions of other truck titles, this smash-crash series opener is bound to be a hit. Ages 3-7. (Jan.)

Copyright 2007 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission

Jon Scieszka
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 has done visual development for numerous production companies from Lucasfilm to Pixar, including Toy Story; Monsters, Inc.; A Bug's Life; Cars; BlueSky's Robots; and Nickelodeon's Spongebob Squarepants. He's also written and illustrated several picture books, among them Hansel and Diesel, The Three Little Rigs, The Ugly Truckling, and Smitten. He's one of the illustrators of Jon Scieszka's fifty-two-book, New York Times bestselling series, Trucktown. Visit him at IllustratorRanch.com.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781416941330
Lexile Measure
430
Guided Reading Level
L
Publisher
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication date
January 08, 2008
Series
Jon Scieszka's Trucktown
BISAC categories
JUV001000 - Juvenile Fiction | Action & Adventure
JUV041030 - Juvenile Fiction | Transportation | Cars & Trucks
Library of Congress categories
Trucks
Construction equipment

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