Tow on the Go! The Mambo Rescue! by Patricia Lakin, illustrated by Chiara Galletti

Full disclosure: I had to look up mambo on Youtube to see what style of music it was. It's a very bouncy, ballroom dance music, apparently one of the forerunners of salsa. With that out of the way, here's a fun new easy reader from Patricia Lakin!

Mo the tow truck, a bright yellow truck with blue accents and stylish red lights, bounces cheerfully through the snow to the rescue, zooming along a rainbow of cheerful mambo music. When he arrives at the scene of the disaster, ten different cars all trapped in the snow, he overrules the grumpy demands to be first and, with the help of mambo music, gets everyone dancing and out of the snow in no time.

The rhythm is, of course, irresistible, "Tow Truck Mo cannot go... until he plays his radio!/Mambo music makes him go. Mo zooms through piles of snow." The cute cartoons show a variety of types of vehicles in a rainbow of colors, and a cheerful Mo, dancing, swaying, and bouncing through a rainbow of musical notes.

Verdict: The combination of vehicles, bright colors, and music is a unique one; be prepared to play some mambo music for kids and listen to them singing and chanting the words as they read and play. This is from the Ready-to-Read line, which has their own leveling system, but it's an intermediate level with large, bold text and short, simple sentences. Recommended.

ISBN: 9781665920070; Published August 2023 by Simon Spotlight; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library