Twinkle Twinkle, Little Car is a rhyming, great good night time

First off, any aspiring children’s book authors can kick themselves for not thinking about this book’s title before now. Secondly, Twinkle Twinkle Little Car by Kat Dopirak with illustrations by Mary Peterson is as cute and engaging as one hoped its fabulous title implies. It connects all of the dots required to make an entertaining children’s picture book does it as effectively as any sales person you’ve encountered.

The classic sales adage goes, first you tell people what you’ll be selling them, and then you sell it to them. In this case, the underlying ‘need’ is for small children to go to sleep. Granted the title, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Car implies sleep; but the journey that the car goes on, as well as, that of your targeted reading audience should be far sleepier.

The second page of the book has a map of the city that the car will visit so that it can say good night. This is the part of the book where it actively tells young readers what it’s going to do. There isn’t a set of steak knives for the winner, but thankfully nobody has to get fired either.

The art in Twinkle Twinkle Little Car will immediately attract adults and children of any age. The city, animals and vehicles that live there are all happy and presented in simple shapes with retro sensibilities.  These are simple illustrations that children will enjoy, but won’t insult them by appearing babyish.

The titular car goes past the fire station, park, forest, other places and of course the construction site. While not an official rule in children’s books that their vehicles must pass diggers and cranes, they’re a welcome site that any kid under 8 wants to see. Near the end of the city tour the car gets on a ferry where it crosses the bay and goes back home. It’s not that we live near a bay; it’s just that kids don’t see them much and the boat ride provides a logical place for the story to end.

When the car gets off the boat it’s sleep, their eyes are halfway shut and it lurks into the garage before falling asleep. The text in Twinkle Twinkle Little Car is simple enough for second graders to be able to read fluently. However, the text is also simple enough for kindergarteners to practice their sight words. The text has a pleasant, simple rhyming structure where each line has the ending sounds the same. In most cases those words are situations where 6 year olds can read them with assistance. For example our 6 YO can read ‘blow’ and ‘show’, but they’re still sight words and he’s not fluently reading them.