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ALL ABOARD! by Nichole Mara Kirkus Star

ALL ABOARD!

Let's Ride a Train

by Nichole Mara ; illustrated by Andrew Kolb

Pub Date: Sept. 5th, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2567-8
Publisher: Abrams

This delightful board book unfolds to become a train almost 6 feet long with lots to explore in each car.

Each page in this concertina-structured book is a train car covered by a big flap, hinged at the top of the page. Lift the flap, and the interior of the car is revealed. Readers can unfold the book to see the train in its full length. Anthropomorphized animals and a multiethnic, multicultural cast of characters constitute the passengers on the train. Colorful cartoonlike illustrations include a gnome, a brawny, kilted white Scot, a scholarly looking bald eagle, a sleeping vampire, and a yoga-practicing giraffe. On the cover readers see a brown-skinned young passenger boarding the train sporting a bright red-and-yellow baseball cap over a black Afro. As the book unfolds, the baseball cap is now missing, and readers will follow the intrepid passenger from car to car on the search for the baseball cap. In each car there are colors to spot, shapes to find, noisy things to identify, and lots of details to take in. On the verso, there is also much to see and identify as the train makes its traverse from countryside to urban setting. Young children and their adult readers will find plenty to keep them engaged.

Right on track! (Board book. 3-6)