Space Taxi Adventures With Victor in Fun Picture Book

Sara Trofa's Taxi Ride With Victor is a fun and imaginative picture book with a delightful surprise ending. Young readers will be engaged with all of the illustrations that take Victor all around the galaxy with passengers who want to go to a variety of destinations. The surprise ending will explain the wild ride all around space with different destinations.

Victor has always wanted to be a taxi driver. Being a taxi driver in the vast galaxy would be awesome. He sees himself as a driver who would know all of the shortcuts and as the friendliest driver around space. But Victor has a problem with directions and often does not know whether to go left or right to make the correct turns. He always tried very hard to make accurate turns. He rarely succeeded and his passengers always ended up in a diffferent location from the one that they had requested. He even took a lost queen to the haridresser instead of her requested destination. A special rider finally took him to a very special destination. All of his former passengers were there to greet him. Young readers will be delighted with the surprise ending and the place that Victor finally arrives at. Victor learns a lesson that it is not really important that he be an expert taxi driver. He learns that making people happy has special rewards and one does not have to be perfect to bring people happiness.

Elsa Klever contributed her talents as an illustrator with fun and engaging illustrations to tell Victor's adventures as a taxi driver around the galaxy. Each page is filled with fun characters who ride along with Victor as he makes his dream of being a taxi driver in space come true.

Taxi Ride With Victor was published by Prestel Publishing and has an ISBN of 978-3-7913-7406-2. It is recommended for ages 5-8.

Picture books in early childhood classrooms were always my go-to tool to introduce concepts that I wanted to teach. This engaging picture book is a fun tool for use in a classroom curriculum that includes learning about space. It provides young readers the opportunity to explore our galaxy with Victor's imaginative job as a tasi driver in space.

*Read Taxi Ride With Victor in a story time session. Call attention to the illustrations of the stars and planets that Victor sees as he drives around the galaxy.

*Take time to examine the groupings of stars in the illustrations. Engage students in a conversation about pictures that we can see with each star arrangement.

*Call attention to the fact that Victor has a lot of trouble with directions and the turns that involve right and left. Play a game to practice using the direction words "left" and "right".

*Make a large floor map available for students to practice going "left" and "right" on the map.

*Prepare an activity with star stickers and large drawing paper for students to draw and make their own star pictures.

*Call attention to the special surprise ending and the destination that Victor finally arrived at. Why is this destination special?

*Call attention to the red letters of the text with the word "Happiness" printed in red and the large text in red on the final page. What lesson did Victor learn from his passengers?

*Prepare a class party to celebrate "Happiness" after reading this story.

*Engage students in a group writing experience by their ideas of what they can do to bring happiness to others. Write students' ideas in their exact words and read them back after completing the activity.

*Assign a creative writing activity for students to write their own story of making others happy. Allow students who do not yet write to dictate their stories to another student who can write. Teachers can also write the dictated stories.