Roadworks by Sally Sutton

cover image

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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