Uncle Chuck's Truck

Farm chores yield a kind of poetry in this radiant picture book, with Coulter and Brown seeming to know exactly how to guide readers through their work. Dressed in his snowsuit, a boy accompanies his uncle as he feeds the cows. Uncle Chuck's truck may get stuck, but no overused rhyme schemes fetter this text. Instead, Coulter calls on repetition and alliteration to endow her language with kid-pleasing rhythms: Uncle Chuck and the narrator go ``bouncing, bouncing, bouncing / over the bumps where his farm is bumpy.'' Similarly, Brown's full-page illustrations use varying amounts of detail to direct the reader's attention: for example, the features of the boy's and uncle's faces are sketchily outlined, cartoon-style, but the cows are carefully depicted, their black-and-white markings varied, their hides shaded to suggest depth and dimension. Fields and furrows are landscaped in clear, skillfully blended watercolors, then delineated in black ink. Both collaborators apply just enough emphasis to specifics to give their work character without sacrificing its simplicity. Ages 1-6. (Mar.)