Your Ticket to Train Books
Unless they are city subway riders, this generation hasn’t had much real life experience with trains, but oh the magic that has been created by Thomas the Tank Engine and Harry Potter’s Hogwart’s Express! Books are just the ticket for jumping on board this special interest! And this fun board game…
Ticket to Ride First Journey Board Game. 6 and up. With a brand new map and simplified rules, first journey is the perfect way to introduce new players to the game of cross-country travel. Just like in ticket to ride, players collect train cards, claim routes, and try to connect cities coast-to-coast. In first journey, though, routes are shorter, train cards are drawn straight from the deck, and the game ends when one player Completes six tickets, claiming the Golden ticket as their prize. Climb aboard, travelers, your incredible first journey awaits.
Trains Go Steve Light. "The big steam train goes, CHUGGA chugga chugga CHUGGA chugga chugga CHOO CHOOOOOOO!" The diesel train goes, "zooosh zooosh ZOOOOOOOOSH ding ding ding!" The American goes, "clang clang clang TOOT TOOT!" All aboard! Take a trip on eight noisy trains as they huff, puff, and toot-toot their way through this lively board book! Perfect for the young train enthusiast. Board book.
Train by Elisha Cooper. Climb aboard a red-striped Commuter Train in the East. Switch to a blue Passenger Train rolling through midwestern farmland. Then hop on a Freight Train, soar over mountains on an Overnight Train, and finish on a High-Speed Train as it races to the West Coast.Trains are moving. Fast and loud, colorful and powerful. Experience their sights, sounds, smells--and the engineers and conductors who make them go--as they roll across the country.
Freight Train by Donald Crews. In simple, powerful words and vibrant illustrations, Donald Crews evokes the rolling wheels of that childhood favorite: a train. Donald Crews used childhood memories of trains seen during his travels to his grandparents' farm in the American South as the inspiration for this timeless favorite. This Caldecott Honor Book features bright colors and bold shapes - red caboose at the back, orange tank car, green cattle car, purple box car, black tender and a black steam engine . . . freight train. Board book, hardcover and paper versions.
Night Train Night Train by Robert Burleight, illus. Wendell Minor. Rhyming, lyrical text describes the sights and sounds of a nighttime journey from country to city on a passenger train in the 1940s. Largely painted in black and white, breathtaking illustrations feature pops of color as the train continues its trip until the full-color spectrum appears as dawn breaks and passengers arrive at the station. Also available in a board book.
Trainstop by Barbara Lehman. A ride on the train is exciting. There’s always something new to see, even if you’ve been there before. What if a train took you somewhere else entirely? What if the doors opened in a strange, new place? This is one train stop you won’t want to miss!
Train Song by Diane Siebert, illus. Michael Wimmer. Here is the song of the train. Listen as it rushes past big cities and small towns. Listen as it sweeps through forests and fields and into tunnels. Hear the whistle wailing, brakes squealing, wheels rolling, r-o-l-l-i-n-g, stop. The words in this book have a rhythm that feels and sounds like a train starting out slowly and then picking up speed as it travels across the country. Then the train is homeward bound. All aboard!
Locomotive by Brian Floca. Caldecott Medal Winner, Sibert Honor Book, and New York Times bestseller, Locomotive is a rich and detailed sensory exploration of America’s early railroads. It is the summer of 1869, and trains, crews, and family are traveling together, riding America’s brand-new transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with the details of the trip and the sounds, speed, and strength of the mighty locomotives; the work that keeps them moving; and the thrill of travel from plains to mountain to ocean.
Steam Train Dream Train by Sherri Rinker, illus. Tom Lichtenheld. The dream train pulls into the station, and one by one the train cars are loaded: polar bears pack the reefer car with ice cream, elephants fill the tanker cars with paints, tortoises stock the auto rack with race cars, bouncy kangaroos stuff the hopper car with balls. Sweet and silly dreams are guaranteed for any budding train enthusiasts! From the team behind Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.
Underground: Subway Systems Around the World by Uijing Kim. A playful search-and-find, inside/outside book of underground systems around the world. Alternating shortened pages introduce the subways of 12 different cities. On the first page we see the exterior of the train, with fascinating facts and figures about the transport system. On the following, we find the inside of the train and the platform, bustling with activity. Here young readers are invited to spot key items that are unique to the city in question.
How Trains Work (How Things Work,by Lonely Planet Kids) by Clive Gifford, illus. James Gulliver Hancock. All aboard! Unfold pages and lift flaps to reveal bustling stations, old steam locomotives fueled with coal, and high-speed trains zooming across Japan at almost 400 miles per hour! From the fastest to the longest, the oldest to the newest, through tunnels, across bridges and up mountainsides, take a fascinating ride through the world of trains. Young readers travel through history and around the world to find out everything they ever wanted to know about trains.
DK Eyewitness: Train The most trusted and beloved nonfiction series on the market, Eyewitness Books provide an in-depth, comprehensive look at their subjects with a unique integration of words and pictures.Eyewitness Train is DK's classic look at railroads and the trains that move along them.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Elements of a flip book, a graphic novel, and film. The story opens with a small square depicting a full moon centered on a black spread. As readers flip the pages, the image grows and the moon recedes. A twelve-year-old boy on the run slips through a grate to take refuge inside the walls of a Paris train station—home for this orphaned, apprentice clock keeper. In an artful blending of narrative, illustration and cinematic technique, Selznick the author engineers the elements of his complex plot: speeding trains, clocks, footsteps, dreams, and movies and the boy’s determination to recreate the secret, unfinished work of his father. 9 and up.
On the Blue Comet by Rosemary Wells, illus. Bagram Ibatoulline. Eleven-year-old Oscar Ogilvie’s life is changed forever as the Crash of 1929 ripples across the country and Oscar’s dad must sell their home—with all their cherished model trains—and head west in search of work. Forced to move in with his humorless aunt and teasing cousin, Oscar is lonely and miserable—until he meets a mysterious drifter and witnesses a crime so stunning it catapults Oscar on an incredible train journey from coast to coast, from one decade to another. Filled with suspense and peppered with witty encounters with Hollywood stars and other bigwigs of history, this captivating novel resonates with warmth, humor, and the true magic of a timeless adventure. 10 and up.
Orphan Train by Christina Kline. Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adolescence of hard labor and servitude? As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful tale of upheaval and resilience, second chances, and unexpected friendship. 9 and up.
We also LOVE The Ultimate Book of Vehicles - hours of engaged enjoyment along with Rockstar status on the gifting, we love getting it in little hands. Yes, pop-up books can get destroyed, but consider it a lesson in teaching the "treasure" in books, and, when there are missing parts after a while, know that it was well-loved. Vehicles has more than 60 movable parts - help a crane lift its load, open the hold of a cargo plane, make a helicopter spin, and, yes, there is a train. Don’t forget Polar Express, and my Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express, an easy reader about a girl saving an express train in a raging storm - it was made into a Reading Rainbow feature (you can find the video on Youtube). Do you know another favorite? Tell us in the comments!
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-by Karen Ritz, creator of www.GrandyCamp.info – website and social for active, busy grandparents, B.S. Children’s Literature and Illustration, University of Minnesota, illustrator of 46 children’s books, and “Gramma” to Jack and Grace.
-Dr. Rebecca Rapport, retired Children’s Literature Professor, University of Minnesota, former editor of New Books for Young Readers, practiced with many Grand Nieces and Nephews, and now a Grandma to book-loving Damien!