Board book evaluation Part 2: “Fire Truck” by Salina Yoon

Salina Yoon is both the author and illustrator of Fire Truck. She uses bright and bold illustration, including foil tabs, in most of her books. In Fire Truck, most the fire trucks and fire hydrants are depicted with shiny red foil, while the other art is painted (Tempera). The illustrations are realistic to real life, though facial features are dots and lines for the eyes, nose, and mouth.

The text structure is four lines per page, with no more than five words per line. The words used are simple words that most children would hear on a regular basis, such as “tree” and “kitty” instead of cat. Words are also used to make the sounds a child might hear, like the siren on a fire truck, “Whoo-eee-whoo!” The text is written to rhyme, which makes the story easy for younger children to listen to and enhances the predictability of the story (Horning, From Cover to Cover, 90). On one page, a question is asked as to what else the reader can find in the fireman’s closet. They may say “ball” or “hat” or even “gloves.” The pace of Fire Truck is very fast, but there is opportunity for readers to ask additional questions as to what’s on the page for younger children to point and answer.

This board book also includes pull tabs on three of the pages, where the reader is instructed to pull up to show who’s inside the fire truck, or the cat in the tree, and the dog in the dog house. This allows the text and art to work together on a spread.

The durability of this board book is great, and the price point of Fire Truck — $5.99 — is in price range with other board books sold by the publisher, Penguin Young Readers. The price range is between $5.99 and $7.99 for books 12-to-24 pages. Fire Truck is smaller in page size, compared to other board books by this publisher. 

Board book evaluation Part 1: “Fire Truck” by Salina Yoon

The book, Fire Truck, by Salina Yoon is a great example of a board book for a baby or toddler, which depicts several important things that characterize it as a good book for this age group. The small, square sized, 12-page board book is easy for little hands to handle. As Kathleen Horning states in From Cover to Cover, young children may enjoy being dazzled by the latest bold venture in picture book art, but at the same time they may ask to return again and again. Some characterizations that parents, or those reading these books, may look for include board books that:

1) Positively reflect and depict a baby or toddlers world. In Fire Truck, the story depicts a fireman rescuing a cat, putting out a fire, a school group visiting a firehouse, and some opportunity for a parent to explain safety — whether the child is indoors or outdoors.

2) Reflect racial and ethnic diversity. The people illustrated in the board book are young and old, have different color hair, a woman firefighter who appears to be Asian, and an African American male firefighter. The children — two girls and one boy — each have different color hair and hairstyles.

3) Reflect a child’s surroundings and expands a small child’s world. The board book shows children what a fire truck looks like, its purpose, and the job of being a fire fighter, and where a fire fighter works — including the gear they wear and what they are used for.

Besides these three main characterizations, there are several other factors that work together to create an aesthetic whole (Horning, From Cover to Cover, 87). Early learning concepts such as color, shapes, and sounds can be depicted from the chosen art and text to tell the story.