Books by Theme

All Around Town

Look around your neighborhood. What do you see? People on the go, machines at work (sometimes noisily!) and more. Look up. What might you see? Airplanes of course, but maybe also a small unmanned craft. Take a spin with these picture books for kids 3–9, all about things — and people — that go.

Busy Bunny Days

By: Britta Teckentrup
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader

From morning to nighttime, there's a lot going on in town, on a farm and at the port, each populated by animals that are stand-ins for people. Readers will discover many things on each large, colorful double page spread as the day passes in each locale. A clock and brief text on each page provides clues as to what to hunt for in this book reminiscent of Richard Scarry.

Drones: From Insect Spy Drones to Bomber Drones

By: Martin Dougherty
Genre: Nonfiction
Age Level: 6-9
Reading Level: Independent Reader

Drones — "remotely operated vehicles" — have changed the military and now may even change the way packages are delivered. Full color photographs and illustrations and brief text introduce a large number of different drones and their uses.

Fly Guy Presents Firefighters

By: Tedd Arnold
Genre: Nonfiction
Age Level: 6-9
Reading Level: Independent Reader

Buzz and his pet fly, Fly Guy, are back. Boy and fly visit a fire station to learn more about what firefighters do as well as a bit about fire safety. Comic illustrations of bug-eyed Buzz and Fly Guy combine with actual photographs present information accessibly and with good humor.

Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site

By: Sherri Duskey Rinker
Illustrated by: Tom Lichtenheld
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Independent Reader

Each vehicle on the construction site snuggles down at the end of the day. Sound has been added to this edition of the picture book version with the same title. Icons on each page ask young readers to match the button which makes the sound — from the final sounds of digging and dumping to yawns and snores.

Machines Go to Work in the City

By: William Low
Genre: Nonfiction
Age Level: 0-3
Reading Level: Pre-Reader

The city is filled with trucks, trains, and more things that go and "vroom", "beep", "honk" and more. Young machine aficionados are sure to appreciate them as presented in deeply colored illustrations and alliterative text. Questions asked are answered with a flap lift.

Maisy's Book of Things that Go

By: Lucy Cousins
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader

Maisy, the engaging white mouse, gets around by bicycle, trolley, and even dreams of flying in a rocket ship. Bright, child-like illustrations and a tab to pull on each page encourage active participation in this very basic but very appealing introduction to modes of travel.

Planes Go

By: Steve Light
Genre: Nonfiction
Age Level: 0-3
Reading Level: Pre-Reader

The horizontal format of this sturdy board book is just right for images of all manner of flying machine — from a seaplane to a space shuttle. Each deft image is accompanied by a similar refrain, "The helicopter goes,…" followed by onomatopoeic sounds dramatically presented in bold typeface.

Stanley's Garage

By: William Bee
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 3-6
Reading Level: Beginning Reader

Stanley is a very talented hamster who runs a garage. There he fixes his customers' cars, taking care of everything from overheating to flat tires. After a busy day, Stanley returns home happily. Attractively simple shapes and bold colors in black outlines on uncluttered pages not only chronicle Stanley's work but begin with illustrations of tools used. The same format is used in a companion book, Stanley the Builder.

The Pigeon Loves Things That Go!

By: Mo Willems
Genre: Fiction
Age Level: 0-3
Reading Level: Pre-Reader

Pigeon is back, this time introducing young children to modes of transportation, from bus to bike. His slightly adult quips are sure to engage adults and children alike as are the bold lined, cartoon illustrations.

Proceeds from the sale of books purchased at Amazon.com help support the Reading Rockets project. Thank you!

Space Rangers

Summer Reading Tips to Go! Delivered to your mobile phone in English or Spanish. Sign up today!

Sign up for our free newsletters about reading

Our Literacy Blogs

Start with a Book: Read. Talk. Explore.

"You may have tangible wealth untold. Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be — I had a mother who read to me." — Strickland Gillilan
https://www.readingrockets.org/booklists/all-around-town
www.readingrockets.org
crawl=CC-MAIN-2019-30
94612
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:PPX4H4ZLOP5MGQ6URWBOLYZVXXZPSZBK
<urn:uuid:065c34c8-644e-4df4-a223-ef61a8855841>
2019-07-20T20:06:08Z
34.238.11.122
text/html
sha1:C4OTL63C4BIHCJR5RRBXZ5XLWELB4BO4
<urn:uuid:4540a7b3-5bc5-4e4c-8032-e326a86f058d>
https://www.readingrockets.org/booklists/all-around-town
response
<urn:uuid:47bda545-51f6-4ded-8334-7e5b08af3ea2>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2019-30
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for July 2019
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-144-233-243.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.1-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/