Awards

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book celebrates outstanding books, authors, and literary achievement through four signature awards: The Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Best Books for Family Literacy, The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, The Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, and Pennsylvania Great Reads from Great Places. Together, these programs recognize excellence in family literacy, children’s poetry, graphic novels, and books that reflect Pennsylvania’s rich literary heritage. By honoring exceptional literary works and connecting readers with engaging and meaningful stories, the Pennsylvania Center for the Book promotes lifelong reading, literacy, and a love of literature across the Commonwealth and beyond.

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Truck Duck

By Michael Rex
Published by Putnam, 2004
Young Readers

When you mix animals and their favorite vehicles together, you get this energetic book that cheerfully pairs powerful machines with drivers from the creature world. Each double-page spread features a rhyming pair—cab crab, boat goat, sheep jeep—in bright primary colors on sturdy pages sure to stand up to repeated rereading. Children's vocabularies will expand as the adult reader explains the humor and meaning in phrases such as rod cod and hog frog.

Truck Duck

Pennsylvania Center for the Book Awards

Baker's Dozen 2005 Winner

Book Activities & Discussion Ideas

Tips for Using with Children

Celebrate children learning to read this book, being certain that they touch the words as they read. Make a matching or memory game with simple rhyming pictures. Include items from the book (caboose/moose; jeep/sheep).

Tips for Using with Families

Use this as an example of a good book for children to practice "reading" themselves. Point out that looking at pictures will always be a key to successful reading. Encourage families to enjoy the silly pictures, but to also touch the words as they read this book to their children.