Emergency!

School Library Journal

PreS-K-A simple description of emergency personnel and equipment and the vehicles that transport them. Police, paramedics, utility workers, fire fighters, and coast guard rush to answer various calls in a variety of clearly labeled cars, trucks, boats, and flying machines. A historical section describes modes of transport for police and early ambulances and fire trucks. Gibbons's stylistic, flat, colorful illustrations accurately depict the events described in the text and add more for observant readers to interpret. However, they do not depict anyone in danger-no one needs to be rescued from burning buildings, the people on the stretchers appear to be awake, and floating in a life boat doesn't seem very dangerous. This popular subject is often included in general works on the individual services such as Susan Kuklin's Fighting Fires (Bradbury, 1993), but not often as a subject by itself. Peter Lafferty and David Jefferis's To the Rescue (Watts, 1990) is more detailed and is aimed at an older audience, though not out of reach for astute preschoolers. Turn on the sirens and make room on the shelf for this one-but it won't be parked there very long.-Martha Gordon, formerly at South Salem Library, NY

Hazel Rochman

The exciting facts in this simple information book will delight all those children who play games about rescue dramas. Clear, brightly colored pictures show dramatic situations in which emergency crews save people from danger. The focus is on their vehicles and specialized equipment: ambulances, fire engines, Coast Guard boats, helicopters, police cars with sirens blaring. There's no sensationalism; with these experts in charge, everything is under control, whether the emergency is at sea, on a snowy mountain, or in a burning house. Kids will want to talk about these pictures and relate them to the fire hydrant on the street and the urgent scenes on the nightly news.