Push! Dig! Scoop! A Construction Counting Rhyme

Greene restages the “Over in the Meadow” counting song using families of trucks at a construction site: “Over by the dirt pile, tipping loads all set to pour,/ works a mama dump truck with her little dumpers four.” Other crews include “a mama cement mixer with her little mixers six” and “a papa asphalt paver with his little pavers nine.” In digitally colored ink drawings, Kirk gives the trucks anthropomorphic features and accessories, albeit fairly stereotypical ones—eyelashes and hair bows for many of the ladies, ball caps and bandannas for the boys—and takes care to space out the vehicles in such a way that they are easily countable. Showing the gentler side of construction sites and big rigs, Greene and Kirk’s excursion should satisfy young truck-lovers. Ages 2–5. Author’s agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown. Illustrator’s agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary. (Oct.)