If My Love Were A Fire Truck, gets dad love and more

In the kid lit book world it’s a thin line between sappy dad love and over the top machismo. Usually it’s the stereotype of a well intentioned dad trying to fix something that goes astray. It’s a close relative to the dumb dad that advertisers used to rely on far too much. If My Love Were A Fire Truck by Luke Reynolds with illustrations by Jeff Mack is children’s book that straddles that line with ease. It shows the father figure in the book doing all manner of activities with his son, albeit in his imagination.

With Father’s Day coming up one expects to see more than a couple children’s books aimed at dads. Some will succeed merely because they cater to dudes, while others will have heart, in addition to being able to be read by moms too.

If My Love Were A Fire Truck is the kind of good-night book that is intended for a father/son audience. It’s from the perspective of a dad reading to his son, with him using his imagination to accompany the journey.  Dad is tucking him into bed and after a couple short paragraphs to take him away to dreamtime he starts comparing his love to various things that a 5 year old can imagine them doing.

It’s the garbage can lid that provides the shield to protect them against the dragon’s breath of fire, the roar that they do in unison with the lions or the log that doubles as a rocket ship to space. Each instance starts out with the father positing his love as the embodiment of an animal, activity or thing. And that if, for example, his love were a racing car then it would rev, rattle and vroom.

Each instance is accompanied with a large picture that usually fills both pages. It’s presented in a realistic painted appearance that still allows young readers lots of creativity to sharpen the edges with their minds and imagine themselves in the situations.

This book fulfills our most important requirements for a good picture book.  Have lots of color, illustrations with action, as well as, additional things to discuss and a good rhyme that holds it all together.

There are ample side activities or discussions that can stem from the illustrations. This could include counting things, finding certain colors, talking about what they like and more. This is a good-night book that can lead to new vocabulary and letting them talk about what they like. For example, we learned that our 5 year old wants to go camping, but still is not a fan of fireworks.

If My Love Were A Fire Truck is a group activity. While it is a children’s book, adult readers will get the most out of the book if they really ham it up. Pretend that your hand is a fire truck, your index finger is a rocket and really emphasize the fun, energetic vocabulary that goes along with it.  It is a dad’s book that is meant for boys, but approachable and dreamy, without being too much or stereotypical.