Grandaddy's Highway

This out-of-the-ordinary book celebrates an active imagination and the diversity of the American road. One evening during a visit to her grandparents Maggie and Grandaddy envisage a cross-country drive at the wheel of a large freight truck. Their scenic odyssey leads "as far west as you can go on 30 West"--past Pittsburgh, Chicago, across the Mississippi and over the Rocky Mountains, and finally to the Pacific Ocean. Diller's warm intergenerational story offers a subtle geography lesson in the form of a loosely structured fantasy, peppered with such childlike images as fetching a cold drink "right out of the ground" at Soda Springs, Idaho. Sorensen's painterly illustrations handsomely contrast the grandeur of nature with true-to-life portraits of attractively ordinary folk. Despite a bland cover and a rather abrupt beginning, this collaboration exudes a quiet, down-home charm. Ages 6-9.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Although Grandmother thinks it's time for Maggie to go to sleep, Grandaddy delays tucking her in: he and Maggie are pretending that she's helping him to take his big red trailer truck across America on US 30. Though the changing scene and time of day are punctuated with a few truck stops and changes of driver (``Take over, Maggie. I need a little nap''), it's a pretty uneventful trip; what holds attention is the small, authentic details of the make-believe journey and the pleasure of the ``drivers'' in their shared responsibility--nicely caught in the dialogue, and in Sorensen's freely rendered paintings, which also document the country's variety and sweep in broad, impressionistic double spreads that effectively conjure up the lure of a cross-country trek. An amiable depiction of an old trucker's memories awakening a child's imagination. (Picture book. 4-8) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.