Running with Trains: A Novel in Poetry and Two Voices

Gr 5–7—It is 1969. Thirteen-year-old Perry's father is MIA in Vietnam. Nine-year-old Steve is stuck working on the family farm. Each week Perry rides the Cincinnatian across rural Ohio from his grandmother's house to visit his mother, who is away trying to earn a nursing degree, and contemplates his transient life. Steve dreams of escaping the routine of farm life. Their lives briefly intersect throughout the book as they catch glimpses of one another through the train window and imagine how much greener the grass must be in the other's experience. The result is an introspective, quiet portrait of two boys on the brink of young adulthood. The tumultuous era in which their tale is set enters into the picture periodically, most frequently in the form of references to Perry's father and his absent, hippie sister, and sets a fitting backdrop for the boys' inner unrest. Rosen delivers well-crafted verse and plays with a few different poetic forms to paint a vivid portrait of the Ohio landscape, but as the plot ultimately goes little further than that described above, the book will likely struggle to find an audience.—Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ