Adventure-seeking Axel, a truck with "big, big wheels," wins a sandy, salty beach race and explores the dirt, rocks, and bumps of a mountain. The simple sentences bursting with energy ("Bam, bam, slam!") are ideal for beginning readers. Little truck-lovers will delight in the boisterous illustrations of mud-loving Axel and the concluding "truck body parts" diagram and tool list.

PreS-Gr 1 Axel, a monster truck, takes center stage in this beginning reader. There are plenty of vrooms, zooms, bumps, and bangs as he ploughs through town, flies off mountain trails, collects rocks sailing through the air and delivers them to a dump, and fills up with gas before returning home. Cheerful cartoons capture the action throughout. Similar in spirit to "Jon Scieszka's Trucktown" series (S &; S), these books will appeal to the same readership-newly independent readers who can't get enough of humanlike vehicles out for adventure. As an added bonus, back matter features an ample array of labeled truck parts and garage tools. Gloria Koster, West School, New Canaan, CT