By Anna Dewdney
The small digger who wants to help the big machines and worries he's too little, until the crew finds the one job that's just his size.
A little excavator watches the big machines - the crane, the dump truck, the bulldozer - roll in to build a park, and he wants so badly to pitch in. But he's small, and the big jobs are too big for him, and he starts to feel like there's no place for him on the site. Then the crew hits a job only a little excavator can do, and he gets his moment. It's from Anna Dewdney, who wrote the Llama Llama books, so the rhyme is warm and the feelings are real and small.
It gives a truck-loving child a machine to root for and a feeling to recognize: wanting to help with the big children and worrying you're too small. The worry is gentle and it resolves happily on the same site, so it never tips into real sadness. For a younger sibling or the smallest at preschool, the little excavator finding his own job is perfect.