A visually engrossing, thorough history of how Lionel trains came into being and ruled the toy world.
An illustrated history of a legendary American toy.
Carp, who served as senior editor at Classic Toy Trains magazine for 20 years, here combines narrative with dozens of photos to tell the history and surprising social impact of the iconic Lionel Train sets that thousands of Americans young and old enjoyed for decades, particularly at the peak of their popularity in the latter half of the 20th century. Carp traces the origins of the line, providing running biographical accounts of the men and women who worked behind the scenes to design both the trains and their elaborate settings, with their miniature houses and scenery and control towers. He introduces people like craftsmen Robert Sherman and Arthur Zirul, “wizards at envisioning entire settings for Lionel trains.” Through text and photos, Carp illustrates the birth and growth of a popular toy idea, describing everything from the design specifics that would allow longer and more complex trains to maneuver on straight tracks and curves to the all-important marketing campaigns that made the latest Lionel train model every year’s must-have Christmas present. He presents all this in the form of a series of mini essays on various aspects of the Lionel story, and he fills these vignettes with the perfect blend of expert knowledge and fan enthusiasm. Doubtless many of his readers had Lionel trains in their childhood, maybe doted over the details or eagerly sought out some hard-to-find item, and those readers will be completely captivated by this train ride down Memory Lane, here invaluably assisted by all the photos Carp has included, which are of course the book’s most prominent asset. But the quiet wonder of the book is its accessibility. Even readers who’d never before heard of Lionel trains will likely find themselves caught up in the story of how these train sets so captured a part of the zeitgeist.
A visually engrossing, thorough history of how Lionel trains came into being and ruled the toy world.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781933600079
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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