Tow-Truck Pluck

This is a children's picture book and it's a children's chapter book. And it's absolutely delightful. It may be my favorite of the 1001 Children's Books.

It wasn't easy to find.

Tow-Truck Pluck is the story of a little boy, Pluck, who drives a small tow-truck around town, and finds a place to live in the tower of the Pill Building. Pluck quickly makes friends with Aggie (whose mother is obsessed with cleanliness), the Stampers (a dad and his six unruly sons), Dolly (a helpful pigeon), Zaza (a cockroach who comes to live with Pluck), a wolf, a hermite (“I am not here” and, yes, he's a hermite, not a hermit), Carl (a one-legged seagull), a curlicoo (an enormously tall bird that hatched from an orange egg and was taken to be stuffed in a bird museum), and so many more that I can't tell you all about them.

Why isn't this book in every library in America? It would make a fabulous read aloud at schools or for parents with their children. I'd give it six stars if I could.