Big Truck Super Wash
By Stephen R. Swinburne
Everyone needs a good wash occasionally. Even a giant excavator! After a hard day’s work, a garbage truck, a tractor, an 18-wheeler, and more are covered with dirt, slime, manure, mud, and bugs. Off to the Big Truck Super Wash!
Honk! Honk! Clank! Belch! 5 powerful trucks tell how they got so grubby. The dump truck explains—
Hauling rocks from the gravel pit,
Working in clouds of dust and grit.
It’s what I love! It’s what I do!
Wouldn’t you want to play in dirt too?
The jolly manager at the Big Truck Super Wash welcomes each dirty truck with a warm smile, shampoo (gurgle and gush), steam, scrubbers (swish-a, swoosh-a), and a rinse. The trucks can return home glistening, gleaming, and spot-free.
With rhythm, rhyme, and onomatopoeia, the text is fun to read aloud. And each truck is depicted with expressive headlight eyes and a personality of its own. In creating the character of the truck wash manager, the illustrator portrayed his dad, who owned a truck and often recruited his son to help wash it.
Subtle messages about hard work and cleanliness make it a perfect choice for bath time or any time!
This one is for my dad. Growing up, he owned a truck, and whenever it needed a wash, guess who got handed the sponge? Years later, when I was old enough to drive, that same truck became my first truck. Big Truck Super Wash was the first book where I got to put my own family into the story. I based the cheerful manager on my dad, and both the author and Holiday House loved the idea from the start. It wasn’t the last time someone I love ended up on the page.
I also designed all of the type in the book, including the cover lettering that was published. I built the title like a real roadside sign, so the same lettering shows up in the story itself: on the Super Wash sign, the billboard, even the title page. Every VROOM, Squelch and Sputter is hand-lettered to match the truck making the noise.
And of course I did my usual thing: the book is packed with nods to the cartoons and movies I grew up watching with my mom and my brother. Between those and the cameos from my dad and grandpa, the whole family made it into this one.
After the book came out, Steve and I sat down together for an interview on Kansas Public Radio to talk about Big Truck Super Wash. Steve and I became fast friends. He’s an absolute gem of a man, and an even better grandpa. We still follow each other on Instagram and check in from time to time, and I’m grateful this book brought him into my life.
Fun fact: See the truck and trailer parked in the distance by the dinosaurs? That’s my grandpa’s. Every year on our cross-country road trip, we’d stop at the Cabazon Dinosaurs before leaving California, so I parked him right there in the final spread.
Big Truck Super Wash rolled out from Holiday House on August 29, 2023. Kirkus praised its “detailed, colorful, and appealing illustrations,” but the best review came from my dad, who finally got to see himself running the Super Wash.
