Diggers, Dozers and Dumpers : Small Stories About Big Machines by Ole Konnecke is a new-in-English picture book. (It was published in English in 2025, but in German in 2023.)
It is a pleasant book, blending enjoyable kidlit reading with a bit of instruction. It is set up, as the subtitle suggests, a series of small stories. Each is just two pages long (except for the final story, which is four pages). Each focuses on a different big machine sure to appeal to young readers. Most of them relate to construction and industry: wheel loader, dumper, telescopic crane, etc. Others relate more to living things, like the combine harvester and cherry picker (shown being used to trim trees).
Several things unify these stories (beyond the obvious and appealing focus on big machines). First, there’s a a colored tab at the upper portion of the left page with the name of the machine on it (allowing for both easy navigation and anticipation). Second, the illustrations echo Sandra Boynton: cartoonish animals with round eyes and simplified features work these machines (though why a cow might be driving a flatbed…no, don’t ask). Third, the various stories introduce vocabulary, either the names of the machines or related to them. For example, the combine harvester story includes a push mower, an electric mower, a motor mower, and a ride-on mower. Fourth, these vocabulary words are in color (the same color of the colored tab for each story). And finally, there’s a gentle humor running throughout.
I smiled as I read this.
