Review:
Roadworks by Sally Sutton
Ill. by Brian Lovelock. Walker, 2008. ISBN
9781921150166.
(Ages 3-7) Recommended. A vibrantly coloured book, which describes how
a road gets built,
Roadworks is full of bright images of all
the work
that has to be done to construct a new highway. There are images of the
surveyors, the bulldozers, lorries, dump trucks, graders, rollers, line
markers, sign makers, and verge gardeners, all complete with pictures
of the people who do the work.
The text is lots of fun, with its repetition and rhymes. Young children
are likely to especially enjoy the alliteration in all the words that
make noises and relish reading along with the story. All readers will
gain a more thorough knowledge of the complexity of building a road and
the different roles of the workers. A useful fact page with
illustrations of the various pieces of machinery and a description of
what each does appears at the back.
The illustrations are bold and very colourful and complement the text.
I especially liked the multicultural nature of the workers and the
gender balance.
This is a book that will lend itself to being read aloud, and the road
building theme will be very useful for a unit of work on transport or
machinery.
Pat Pledger
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Consulting, 2007