I LIKE TRAINS

A distilled, perfected love of all things locomotive.

An anthropomorphic puppy tells readers right from the start, “I like playing with my train.” This play includes both running a toy train along tracks and stringing cardboard boxes together, pretending to be the engineer. They love reading a wide variety of books about all kinds of different trains, but best of all is when they get to ride with their parent on the train. Tickets purchased, they find the platform, their train, and their seats. The world goes whizzing by, and at the end there is Grandma and a train playground nearby, to boot. Simple storytelling and even simpler words make this an ideal selection for even the youngest of train enthusiasts. The protagonist’s gender is left wide open for children of all kinds to identify with. Hirst’s screen-printed art is rendered in bright, bold colors of exceeding cheer and good humor. Her world bustles with dogs of many colors, all unclothed but many accessorized: with backpacks, purses, glasses, etc. One dog at the railway station uses a wheelchair. Tantalizingly, a cat seems to wave at the protagonist from a passing train. Even children that might describe themselves as train neutral may feel a twinge of envy or longing as the hero’s train whooshes past backyards, roads, factories, boats, and more on their journey. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11.7-by-20.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 19% of actual size.)

Marvelous—poised to make train converts of readers one and all.