What Parents Should Know
Gorgeous photographs and the bonus of unusual or
little-known trains will beckon kids. A good balance of
need-to-know facts and astounding tidbits will keep older
readers (including parents) interested.
Common Sense Media Review
What better way to convey in a book the majesty of a train
than a huge 13-inch-by-10-inch photo of one? Even readers who
aren't train buffs will enjoy examining these pictures over and
over again. As one fifth-grader put it, "You can see the
details so much better," and that reader also loved the record
breakers--the longest and fastest trains and the mind-boggling
train of the future. She even wished there were more facts
about how each train worked, as well as a few interior or
cut-out pictures, though she's above the book's targeted age
range.
Or was she? The size of the photographs and the book itself are especially appropriate for kids seven or under ("Wow!" and "Cool!" were the dominant reactions during a kindergarten-classroom reading), but older children are more likely to enjoy the text details. This gives this picture book a longer life span.
For older kids, a few questions yearn to be answered in the next printing. The section on monorail trains mentions that most have only two cars, but one child immediately asked why that was true. Another wanted to know whether most steam trains ran on both steam and coal, or just coal, after the text pointed out that both configurations existed.
But these are minor quibbles -- overall, this is a great book foe curious kids.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
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