Steam Train, Dream Train - Hardcover

Sherri Duskey Rinker

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1452109206 ISBN 13: 9781452109206

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2013

Synopsis

From the team behind the #1 New York Times bestseller Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site comes the train book kids have been dreaming of!

The dream train pulls into the station, and one by one the train cars are loaded: polar bears pack the reefer car with ice cream, elephants fill the tanker cars with paints, tortoises stock the auto rack with race cars, bouncy kangaroos stuff the hopper car with balls. Sweet, silly dreams and happy smiles before sleep are guaranteed for Thomas the Train book fans any budding train enthusiasts!

• Introduce your child to new animals and experiences with this ideal children's bedtime book
• A great read-aloud book for kids or early reader book for kids beginning to read on their own
• Features beautiful art and words from an award-winning writer and illustrator team

If you loved Mighty, Mighty Construction Site and Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site, this book will be the ideal addition to your children's book set and is perfect for:

• Readers of first story books for baby or toddlers or bedtime stories for the whole family
• Read-along children's book or next step up from board books for early readers
• Boys and girls who love imaginative stories about things like trains, trucks, cars, dinosaurs, and little critters
• Fans of Sandra Boynton, Richard Scarry, Nancy Tillman, and Dr. Seuss books
• Adding to the shelf with books like Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night?, Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, Peppa Pig: Little Library, and Good Night, Little Blue Truck

About this title

About the Author

Sherri Duskey Rinker lives in the Chicago area with her photographer husband and two energetic, inquisitive sons: one fascinated by bugs and magic, and the other by trucks and trains. She created this goodnight story in hopes of happier bedtimes and sweet dreams for all. Find out more about Sherri at www.sherriduskeyrinker.com.

Tom Lichtenheld loves drawing pictures and telling silly stories. His books include the New York Times bestseller Duck! Rabbit!, Wumbers, and the ALA Notable Children’s Book, E-mergency! He lives in Geneva, Illinois. Visit him at www.tomlichtenheld.com.

Reviews

PreS-K-From out of the midnight darkness comes a mighty train heading to Night Falls station. With clouds of steam hissing from the smokestack and brakes squealing, it comes to a stop and the animal crew jumps out, ready to load up the cars with freight. A rambunctious bunch of monkeys fills the boxcar with toys while kangaroos toss balls into the open-topped hopper car. Purple elephants use their trunks to fill the tanker cars with different colored paints as a polar bear and penguin put giant ice-cream sundaes in the reefer car. After such a hard night's work, the crew beds down on the flatbed car, ready for the steam engine to fire up and take them to dreamland. The strength of this book is in the striking spreads in wax oil pastel. A vast night sky is filled with sparkly stars and large billowing clouds that frame the oncoming train traveling through a realistically silhouetted landscape, while the animal crew looks strangely toylike, as though made of plush and plastic. It is not until the final spread that this incongruous bunch, and this whole dream, is explained by a nighttime look at a young train lover's bedroom. The beginning and end of the book are filled with expressive and enjoyable railroad sounds, yet the rhyming text loses a bit of steam in the middle, describing but not always enhancing the activity depicted in the illustrations. Still, this is a book that will, like its predecessor, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site (Chronicle, 2011), be embraced as a nighttime standard, particularly among train lovers everywhere.-Teri Markson, Los Angeles Public Libraryα(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

*Starred Review* Rinker and Lichtenheld hit pay dirt with Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site (2011) and follow that success with another rhyming bedtime adventure full of sweet surprise. A train pulls into Nightfalls Station to be loaded with cargo, and page by page, different animals stock a series of cars, each with items suited to their species (rabbits load pogo sticks, polar bears load ice cream). When the cargo is complete, the train departs, and we see it circling the floor at the foot of a child’s bed in a pool of moonlight. The romantic rhyming text (“Through the darkness, clickety-clack . . . / coming closer, down the track . . . / hold your breath so you can hear / huffing, chuffing drawing near”) never refers to the animals by name, allowing the audience to make the clever matches on their own. The different train cars, with the technical name for each given in slightly bolded typeface, add special appeal for young railroad aficionados. Working in vivid oil pastels on dark gray paper, Lichtenheld captures the luminous magic of dreams set against the endless dark of nighttime, while also adding a touch of comedy with his grinning, cartoony animal characters. Kids will clamor for this one at bedtime and storytime alike. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Thom Barthelmess

Edition details

• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1452109206
• ISBN 13: 9781452109206
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Tom Lichtenheld
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40