Sputter, Sputter, Sput! by Babs Bell

Title: Sputter, Sputter, Sput!

Author: Babs Bell

Illustrator: Bob Staake

Reading Level: Baby - Preschool

Hardcover: 32 Pages

Publisher: Harper Collins

"Glug, Gurgle, Glug"... A flashy red car bearing a wide-eyed curious little driver stops at the gas station to fill up the tank. Once its full, he zooms and vrooms all around the town. He races uphill, downhill, over the bridge and through the tunnel. Sooner the car goes Sputter, Sputter, Sput! A curious girl stops to ask "What's the matter?" But, our confused driver has no idea. Did he run out of gas? Probably. After a second refill at the station, he goes up and down and races out of town. What I love about this book are the beautiful illustrations. The stylish, graphic like pictures and the simple text will make it very appealing for the young readers. Simple shapes like circles, triangles, squares and rectangles undergo a transformation to become humans, cars, buildings, trees and birds. The pictures are utterly simple, yet insanely attractive.

My daughter isn't crazy about cars in general, but she is drawn towards this book quite often. She squeals in delight as the car zooms and vrooms around the town. When the car goes through the downtown, She loves guessing who lives in what house. She always takes the green house with the red door and I get the one that is adjacent to it, the red house with the purple door. On the next page, the car vrooms through the freeway and look what she finds. Her daddy in his business suit zooming by, Mommy and a little baby (that's her) in a convertible, grandma driving all alone and her favorite red and blue birds driving their own cars. The pictures are playful, fun and spurs a lot of discussion. We have read it many times already and she seems to have more fun each time we look at it. This book was more like a love at first sight :) We can't seem to get enough of it!!

My Rating: 4.5/5