Pick of the Day: Steam Train, Dream Train

SLJ — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:00:13 +0000

RINKER, Sherri Duskey. Steam Train, Dream Train. illus. by Tom Lichtenheld. 40p. Chronicle. 2013. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-1-4521-0920-6. LC 2012030942.
PreS-K–From out of the midnight darkness comes a mighty train heading to Night Falls station. With clouds of steam hissing from the smokestack and brakes squealing, it comes to a stop and the animal crew jumps out, ready to load up the cars with freight. A rambunctious bunch of monkeys fills the boxcar with toys while kangaroos toss balls into the open-topped hopper car. Purple elephants use their trunks to fill the tanker cars with different colored paints as a polar bear and penguin put giant ice-cream sundaes in the reefer car. After such a hard night’s work, the crew beds down on the flatbed car, ready for the steam engine to fire up and take them to dreamland. The strength of this book is in the striking spreads in wax oil pastel. A vast night sky is filled with sparkly stars and large billowing clouds that frame the oncoming train traveling through a realistically silhouetted landscape, while the animal crew looks strangely toylike, as though made of plush and plastic. It is not until the final spread that this incongruous bunch, and this whole dream, is explained by a nighttime look at a young train lover’s bedroom. The beginning and end of the book are filled with expressive and enjoyable railroad sounds, yet the rhyming text loses a bit of steam in the middle, describing but not always enhancing the activity depicted in the illustrations. Still, this is a book that will, like its predecessor, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site (Chronicle, 2011), be embraced as a nighttime standard, particularly among train lovers everywhere.–Teri Markson, Los Angeles Public Library

Pick of the Day: Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site (DVD)

SLJ — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:00:49 +0000

Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site. DVD. 8 min. Weston Woods. 2012. ISBN 978-0-545-50221-4. $59.95; CD with hardcover book, ISBN 978-0-545-50223-8: $29.95; CD, ISBN 978-0-545-50222-1: $12.95.
PreS-K–Dramatically narrated by Dion Graham, Sherri Duskey Rinker’s story (Chronicle Books, 2011) of a crane, a cement mixer, a dump truck, a bulldozer, and an excavator at work on a city construction site winding down for the night is soothingly charming. Graham gives each machine a distinctive voice, and makes the most of every crunch, roar, and snore in the author’s rhyming text. The accompanying music by Jon Carroll begins jauntily as each machine performs one last task and then slows to appropriate bedtime pace as it gets ready for sleep. The video is true to Tom Lichtenheld’s wonderful illustrations with expressive, anthropomorphic faces for the trucks, a glorious sunset in tones of red, and a smiling moon overseeing the bedtime preparations. The warmth of the colors, the fading light, the moonlight, and the star captured by Crane Truck for a night light make for a cozy antithesis to a normal construction site. The most special moments from the book that are brought to life with animation are when the Crane Truck snuggles his teddy bear close and when a sleepy neighbor yells out the window, “Pipe down!” to the powerfully snoring Dump Truck. Subtitles are optional. Both the video and audio productions are superior versions of an exceptional picture book.–Constance Dickerson, Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library, OH

School Library Journal» Sherri Duskey Rinker

Pick of the Day: Steam Train, Dream Train

Pick of the Day: Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site (DVD)