Pete's Party: Ready-to-Read Level 1 (Jon Scieszka's Trucktown) - Softcover

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 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.

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 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.

PreSchool-Grade 1—These titles will draw beginning readers into the zany world of anthropomorphic trucks, whose distinct personalities and endearing facial expressions roll across the colorful pages. In Party, Jack and Gabby deal with swerves, curves, and potholes in the road as they follow a dizzying array of directional signs on their way to a friend's celebration. It's a fine companion to Jennifer Armstrong's Once Upon a Banana (S & S, 2006) to reinforce the concept of reading signs. In Bully, trucks watch with dismay as Big Rig wreaks havoc with the barrels, crates, and tires that are intended as a birthday cake with cement frosting. Delighted to discover the cake is meant for him, Big Rig still can't resist the urge to ram into the construction with a final rousing "ZOOM! BOOM!" Though the book is designed for independent reading, the sound effects make it an excellent read-aloud.—Gloria Koster, West School, New Canaan, CT
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