Little Taco Truck

Little Taco Truck has a happy life: he’s got a great location and plenty of satisfied customers. Then other food trucks—serving falafel, tapas, gumbo, arepas, and gelato (all defined in a glossary)—move in and crowd him out. While the other trucks’ opportunism seems far more thoughtless than malicious, Little Taco Truck’s tentativeness and self-pity exacerbate the ordeal (What if his customers like the other food more? What if he disappears from view?). But tearful misery soon gives way to determination: he stakes out a space at dawn, and when the others show up, Valentine (All Bears Need Love) writes, “Little Taco Truck blinked his lights, puffed up his tires and said, ‘This is my spot!’ ” Chastened and eager to cooperate (“We can all fit if we squeeze,” volunteers the arepas truck), the group even finds room when Oodles of Noodles shows up. A familiar story about standing up for oneself gets a tasty twist courtesy of the urban culinary zeitgeist and plenty of visual pop from digital illustrations by Martin (I’m Hungry), who arrays the blocky, brightly colored characters along a single, streetlike plane. Ages 3–7. [em]Author’s agent: Linda Epstein, Emerald City Literary Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Anne Moore Armstrong, Bright USA. (Apr.) [/em]