Big Truck Yoga

In eight pairs of facing pages, Forde matches a child performing a yoga pose with a construction vehicle whose shape generally resembles that formed by the child’s completed yoga pose. Rendered in a cartoon style, Forde’s racial mix of boys and girls are placed on a bare, solid coloured background, a background that extends to that pairing’s machine. Some of the match-ups are visually more obvious than others. For example, a boy arching his back in a “cobra” does have some resemblance to a “dump truck” with its box raised in the dumping position, and a girl in the “chair” pose is somewhat similar to a “cherry picker” when its platform is extended. On the other hand, it’s a bit of a visual stretch to match the girl performing a “warrior” with a “[semi]trailor” or the girl doing a “cow” with a “bulldozer” [though the play on words is fun].The remaining pose/machine match-ups are bridge/tow truck, downward dog/excavator, tree/crane and child’s pose/steamroller.

Some young readers/listeners may “get” the yoga/machine visual connections while others might just be attracted to the contents of only one of the page pairings and, for instance, simply focus on the illustrations of the machines or perhaps be tempted try to physically reproduce some of the yoga positions. The simple noun text of this board book will add to youngsters’ vocabulary banks.