Photo: Alyssa Rosenberg Illustration: Simms Taback During my time as a parenting columnist, I conducted a really delightful interview with an executive at Scholastic who told me that they could never acquire enough kid-oriented non-fiction. It was the sort of observation that I never would have made on my own but that immediately made sense to me: of course kids want to understand how the world works, and there is so much to try to make sense of. There are plenty of books and series that meet that need in marvelously creative ways, from Jerry Pallotta’s “Who Would Win?” books that teach animal science through a series of imaginary cage matches to the delights of the DK Eyewitness series. I also think that children’s natural curiosity about the world is something to keep in mind when considering what makes for compelling picture book illustration. Now, it’s absolutely the case that an excellent combination of words and illustrations can make technical drawings and blueprints fascinating: David Macaulay’s whole career is proof of that. But especially for younger children who aren’t reading on their own, I find myself drawn to illustration that is technically specific but illustrated without obsessive precision. A wonderful example of what I mean is “Road Builders,” a 1994 step-by-step guide to building a stretch of highway. As you’ll be able to tell from the creases and tears in the photos that follow, this is one of the Imagination Library selections that my children love the most. No one who looks at “Road Builders” would ever think for a second that it’s anything other than hand-drawn. The wobbles and asymmetries are visible from the cover and are visible throughout the book. Simms Taback, the illustrator, isn’t aiming for realism here; there’s a depth of field to his scenes, but no real attempt to give the characters or vehicles mass, or to project shadows from every direction. But despite being very deliberately hand-drawn, Taback’s illustrations include a really wonderful amount of detail. If he draws a dump truck in profile, he’ll be clear to capture the wires and hydraulics. Wheels have clearly-delineated rivets. Vehicles have model numbers. Construction helmets have tape with the owners’ name scribbled on them as well as labels with the brand name. Photo: Alyssa Rosenberg Illustration: Simms Taback Taback’s not obsessive; if you look closely at the way he’s illustrated the tracks on a power shovel, you’ll see that he hasn’t used an exactly even number of circles and lines to convey the texture on each individual tread, but the number of lines in between the circles and the edges of the treads isn’t so far off as to be disharmonious. Photo: Alyssa Rosenberg Illustration: Simms Taback All of this makes sense for a book that’s going step-by-step through the process of explaining how a road is built and what each vehicle’s role is in the process. Simplified illustrations could work with this text—after all, “Road Builders” is telling kids that cement is used to make gutters, not talking them through the composition of cement or going into detail about why cement mixers need to keep rotating so the cement doesn’t harden prematurely. But Taback’s attention to the vehicles detail suggests to me an understanding of how the target audience will read this book. They aren’t at the point of wanting technical diagrams of these vehicles. They’re just fascinated by power rollers and paver trucks and stripers as physical objects, and who wouldn’t be? The imperfections in the drawings help make this complicated machinery seem friendly rather than overwhelming, in the same way that the smiling faces of Buddy, John, Ed, Fran, Joe, Jessie and Chuck—the vehicles’ operators—do. I understand the appeal of Richard Scarry’s “Cars and Trucks and Things That Go,” I really do. But there’s a point at which I start to find the whimsy of that particular book condescending. Kids don’t need the false novelty of a carrot car to stay interested in vehicles. It’s possible to do what Taback does in “Road Builders”: respect their fascination with real trucks and construction equipment by presenting mechanical details in a way that’s not overwhelming or dry. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some power shovels to observe. Things that made me happy recently: These insanely autumnal apple scones (I substituted in butterscotch chips) This bat Rick Atkinson’s “An Army At Dawn,” which I finished this weekend (for my money, Atkinson is one of the most purely entertaining historical writers working, and he may be solely responsible for turning me into a Military History Dad)