Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Car

Dopirak (You’re My Boo) and Peterson (Dig In!) team up for a soothing and smartly executed vehicular riff on a familiar lullaby. The title character—a cheerful, googly-eyed convertible—decides to go out for a nighttime spin: “Twinkle, twinkle, little car,/ how you love to travel far! Now it’s time to go to bed./ But you want to drive instead.” Cruising into town, the auto gives good-night beeps to its pals: tractors dozing in a shed, big machines wrapping up work at a construction site, wide-awake emergency response vehicles on call, and a parade of “trucks and taxis, buses too.” Despite all of the racing around, Dopirak keeps the mood even-keeled, and the subdued palette of Peterson’s digitally colored linoleum block prints does the same. Her chunky nighttime scenes are dominated by swaths of muted gray-blue that contrast with bright white headlight beams and a looping golden road. Even the vehicles’ interspersed honks and sirens never get too rowdy, printed in a small, almost polite font. Up to age 8. [em]Author’s agent: Tracey Adams, Adams Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Jennifer Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary. (Feb.) [/em]