I used to search the shelves for Jim Aylesworth's Country Crossing when I had a family come into the library with a train loving toddler or preschooler. There was an old time feel to that story and this one is in that same family for sure.
In the light of dusk where shadows play a train is boarding and preparing for its journey. Using lyrical language, repetition, dark and light, we are taken on a journey into the night through the hills, across the fields with silent cattle and waving wheat, our headlamps catching the glowing eyes of small wild creatures as we go "hissing, chugging, mountain-hugging" on our way.
It's a lullaby of sorts with occasional moments of tension as we spook the cattle, charge through tunnels and race the stallions. The poetic, sing song voice soothes as as we chug along and there is a feeling of reassurance and strength and dependability that will reach the hearts of young ones.
Light and dark play major roles here and create a muted atmosphere just right for sending a young child off to the Land of Nod. This beautiful retro story could become the book that is requested night after night.
32 pages 978-1624146572 Ages 3-6
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This cinematic book takes readers along on a steam engine’s journey through the night, from a city to a small town. Varied landscapes as well as color shifts show the passage of time from dusk to night to dawn. The rhythmic text is perfect for bedtime reading, and train lovers young and old will appreciate the various railway details incorporated in the text and art.
Night train wakens to the dusk, groggy, stretching, load and roll, load and roll.
Bringing warmth and wonder to the night, this book will send young readers off to sleep dreaming of the steady train journeying through the night. ---from the publisher
