So thrilled to be celebrating my debut picture book today. In the darkest days of the pandemic my daughter and I started a picture book and song writing zoom and BIG TRUCK DAY is the happy result. I was inspired by the Big Truck Days that my public library sponsored where firefighters and garbage collectors and farmers and police persons and utility & construction workers all brought their vehicles to celebrate the care of the community. There was even a blood mobile!

Niki Stage is the illustrator and this is also her debut. Her art brought such energy and joy to the page. I appreciate her vibrant and inclusive style. I’m also grateful to Lindsay Delaney, librarian extraordinaire, who encouraged me to put in a page of back matter to answer the question, What’s a bookmobile? which was bound to come up at story time.

Many thanks to the brilliant team at Greenwillow including editor Virginia Duncan and art director Sylvie Le Floc’h. Thank you to Fiona Kenshole and the team at Transatlantic for their ongoing support. And thank you to booksellers and librarians everywhere for bringing books and kids together.

This is the second in the new chapter book series featuring Ryan Hart. I admit I am especially fond of this series because it is set in Portland OR, my hometown and features favorite places from my own childhood including the Saturday Market, Oaks Park, and my beloved county libraries. I also very much appreciated how the faith of Ryan Hart’s family is depicted in the moral lessons they impart and the summer bible camp she and her brother attend.  Ryan spends a summer preparing for the birth of her baby sister and adjusting to all the changes that entails from doing more chores to choosing a name. This series is longer and more complex than some chapter books making it best for 6 to 10 year olds–a good companion for readers of Clementine, and Ramona. 

And now a personal aside. The majority of children of all races in this country are religiously observant. The entire culture of worship, vacation bible school and summer camp, church based sports teams and scout troops, social justice activities, youth groups, rites of passage, and sacraments, all of it, gets left out of children’s books and there’s absolutely no reason for it. Even in conversations specifically about diversity we seldom include religion and that’s a blind spot that could use some attention.