Guest Post From Sandbox Book Club

The following is a guest post courtesy of Becky Whitney and her Sandbox Book Club Recommendation of Rub Some Dirt on It-

Dig Dig Digging 

by Margaret Mayo

I don't know about your toddler girls and boys (especially the boys), but mine is incredibly obsessed with cars and trucks and things that go.  Especially loud things that go, like construction vehicles.  You might say that we have one or two laying around the house.

And those are just a few I could grab on the fly.

And I don't know about your toddler boys and girls, but my 26-month-old is starting to transition out of his nap, a part of the day that I hold sacred and cling to with every fiber of my being (and yes, he still has a binkie.  You caught me).  Just as I get the baby good and consistent with her afternoon  nap, her brother decides that he's pretty much over it.  What's a mom to do?  Well, for starters, he is still in his crib so I lock him in there for at least an hour and a half every day.  It's his down time, and sometimes he falls asleep in there, probably out of sheer boredom.  But on days (like today), when there is no nap in sight and his crib becomes his playground, I let him bring a plethora of toys and books to bed and pray that the occasional Vrooom! doesn't wake the baby.

So if your toddler is like mine, dodging his or her nap and/or loves all things with wheels, then do I have the book for you.  Dig Dig Digging, which I found at the Yankee Bookstore in Woodstock, Vermont, is hard to find in the average chain bookstore, although I have no idea why. It's an awesome little board book that uses four-line verses about each vehicle to create a sort of refrain; every vehicle in the book "can work all day." Jackson loves sing-songing it along with me at the end of every page, and remembers what every truck or vehicle is good at. "Bulldozers are good at push, push, pushing" or "Fire engines are good at race, race, racing!" Since we also have a fire engine or two laying around, it's a great book to help integrate reading with playtime.  The illustrations are vibrant and there is some interesting vocabulary words in there, too, like "caterpillar treads."  Being a mom of a toddler boy, I was glad to learn that terminology myself and have actually employed it once or twice.

Dig Dig Digging was a huge find when Jackson was past the identification phase of reading and started to apply what he knew.  He knew what a crane was, then he wanted to know what they were used for.  For lift, lift, lifting, of course! 

I would say you couldn't go wrong including this book in any one-year-old's birthday present or to brighten your little big-rig-lover’s day!

Photos courtesy of Becky Whitney