William Bee's Wonderful World of Trucks by William Bee
William Bee's Wonderful World of Trucks by William Bee | |
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Category: For Sharing | |
Reviewer: Sam Tyler | |
Summary: Trucks! Trucks! Trucks! More trucks than you could fill a landfill with in this colourful book that is great to look at, but will also sate the curious child. | |
Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
Pages: 48 | Date: March 2017 |
Publisher: Pavilion Children's Books | |
External links: Author's website | |
ISBN: 9781843653257 | |
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Children will be who they are, no matter how you try to change them, they know what they like. You may want to steer one child away from a world of pink and the other from a world of blue, but turn your back for a moment and there they are; one playing with a doll, the other a train. There is nothing wrong with a girl liking traditional girl things and a boy liking traditional boy things, as long as they are given the opportunity to pick what they want. Some books you would assume are for one or the other, but actually transcend; these books are simply cool in their own right.
William Bee is all things, to all people. He is an engineer, mechanic, cleaner, fire rescuer, but above all – he is a truck lover. William loves trucks so much he has them by the trove. So many trucks to do so many jobs. Join Bill and his pals as he shows you around his vast collection that is both awe inspiring and beautifully geeky in equal measure.
Growing up, I was a fiction fan, but my brother was a non-fiction fan, in William Bee's Wonderful World of Trucks you have a book that sits between the two camps. There is a light story that basically revolved around William showing you his vehicles and what they can do. By doing this you are able to get an idea how the actual trucks work. A camper van is vastly different to a fire truck. William has them all and he will tell you.
A collection of trucks is, at first glance, the type of book that only a mechanically minded child would like; the ones that like to not only play with a toy, but want to know how it works. William Bee's Wonderful World of Trucks is this and more, due to the art style. The 1970s style chunky and colourful images are brilliant. There is a lot of detail on each double spread, but rather than being bland mechanics, the use of dayglow colouring makes the minutiae a wonder to look at. This is not just cross section non-fiction, but fun imagery. On each page William is helped out by his friends; a little dog and some traffic cones. Discovering were his pals are hiding is as much fun as discovering more about trucks.
The hardback version of this book is something to behold. The colours really pop and William Bee's love of trucks is so geeky that it is joyous. It is true that the book treads a thin line between information and visuals. There is a surprisingly large amount going on in each page so it would go over the heads of some toddlers, but the imagery is a little juvenile for an older child. However, for that intelligent and machine obsessed 2-5 year old that you know, this could easily become their favourite book.
There is a strong children's sub-genre out there all about the world of work; Construction by Sally Sutton and Brian Lovelock.
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You can read more book reviews or buy William Bee's Wonderful World of Trucks by William Bee at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy William Bee's Wonderful World of Trucks by William Bee at Amazon.com.
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