Good Books For Kids

Showing posts with label Trains. Show all posts

Trains by Anne Rockwell

Trains is a nice little book for train obsessed Toddlers and Preschoolers. The artwork is very much like Richard Scarry's, in my opinion, which means that it's cheerful and attractive.

The text is simple -- but not so simple that the book can be used as a primer. The author makes observations such as “Trains go on tracks”, and “Engineers drive the locomotives that pull the cars along the tracks".

Besides reading the story, I think you could find a variety of things to talk about with very young children. There are the names of normal objects, like barns, ships, and cows, for example. And there are, of course, the train related items, like signals, freight, passengers, diesels, steam, tracks and more.

In addition, you could use the book to discuss concepts such as color and number -- how many sheep? -- as well as notions such as opposites: toy/real, city/country, stop/go.

A Good Library find for the train-obsessed.

Pam
Somewhere in the X-burbs

Trains

Accelerated Reading level :none found
Paperback: 24 pages
Publisher: Puffin; 1st Unicorn Ed edition (January 1, 1993)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 014054979X

Thomas and the Great Discovery (A Golden Classic)

Yeah! Another great Thomas book.

What a gorgeous book. Granted, the copy we got from the library has one of those shiny clear covers on it, which adds to the glamour, but this is really a very nice book. [My son declared that it was "awesome".]

Besides Tommy Stubbs great drawings --which I prefer over the pictures snatched from the television show-- this book introduces a new character and some new places. The character is Stanley, and the places are Great Waterton and the mysterious Morgan's Mine.

For those of you who may not have seen the movie, in the Great Discovery Thomas stumbles upon the boarded up township of Great Waterton. Sir Topham Hatt is so delighted that he puts Thomas in charge of the repair work. Thomas' boiler almost bursts with pride, but then the unthinkable happens and he gets injured and has to go to The Works. While he is gone, Sir Hatt puts Stanley in charge, and that doesn't change when Thomas returns.

Well, as you can all imagine Thomas' funnel is deflated by this situation. But in an un-Thomas-like move, our plucky hero doesn't pout too much, but does struggles forwards, working hard to show everyone that he is really useful. Unfortunately, in doing so, Thomas ends up getting stuck in Morgan's Mine.

But don't worry, it all ends up okay in the end, as Stanley and Thomas become friends.

Considerations:::
If you, or your Steamie loving buddy(s), have seen the movie, you will note that there are some differences between it and the book. For one thing, there is no 'wild' water ride. And for another, Thomas doesn't pout as much. These differences didn't seem to be a concern with my own in-house crew.

Besides the artwork, which I've already commented on, I liked the positive themes that are in this book. There isn't the dreaded 'hate' word, nor really any sort of name calling. In addition, it's very nice that the two 'opponents' (Thomas and Stanley) end as friends. From a mom's point of view, this is just an excellent Thomas book. Highly recommend it.

Pam T
Somewhere in the X-burbs

Thomas and the Great Discovery

Reading Information:
Word Count: 1,492
Page Count: 32
Accelerated Reading Level: 3.2 / points: 0.5
AR quiz: 125779

Publisher: Golden Books
ISBN-10: 0375843825
-- amazon

Thomas and the Treasure

We own dozens of Thomas books. Some are primers, some are coloring books, and some are on a level where an adult must read them. And having read most of them numerous times I've noticed that, in general, the Thomas and Friends books are either very good or awful.

The awful ones are generally the ones with photos from the television show. For some reason many of the photographs are muddy in color and not very appealing. This, of course, doesn't bother my kids nearly as much as it does my husband and myself. Children are just VERY forgiving of picture quality as long as those pictures are of their favorite Steamies. We adults would like a little quality for our money please.

The awful ones also suffer from being badly edited. So much so, that in some cases you would be hard pressed to know what was happening if you hadn't already seen the television show.

Now fortunately, Thomas and the Treasure doesn't fall into the 'awful' category. The stories are well done and WOOHOO! the publisher has updated the format. This book, which was published in 2008, has more and better photos, many of which have small colorful bands (frames?) around them to set them off.

Hurray for the New Thomas!

In Thomas and the Treasure, you get 3 stories. Thomas and the Treasure, of course, Duncan's Bluff, and Seeing the Sights. If you don't recall the adventure in the title story, it begins with Salty spinning a yarn about lost pirate treasure. While everyone else rolls their eyes in disbelief, Thomas takes the riddle to heart and sets about to unravel the clues. For awhile, matters go amuck as Thomas forgets other tasks. And it does looks like he's on a wild goose chase, but in the end, he is rewarded for his faith and intelligent inquiry.

In Duncan's Bluff, Duncan and James come to loggerheads when Duncan taunts James about his workload, and the feisty red engine counters that he can work harder and be more useful than Duncan ever dreamed of being. A competition ensues and when it looks like he is going to lose, Duncan tricks James. As with all wayward acts, this little slight of track backfires. It ends with Duncan seeing the error of his ways, and he and James reconcile and realize that it is better to work together than against one another.

Finally, in Seeing the Sights, Thomas gets so caught up in trying to compete with the powerful Gordon, that he ends up doing a terrible job showing visitors about the island. He rushes them around, until he figures out that "seeing" a sight is not as good as "enjoying" a sight. This is a stop and smell the roses sort of story. The rose in this case being a delightful day at the beach.

All-in-all Thomas and the Treasure is a winner. Though I personally prefer some of the drawn Thomas artwork, this new photo format is very nice and the the stories are good, well written, and the book's bound to please any Steamie lover.

Considerations :::
No Accelerated Reading designation found. This one is for adults to read. The stories are typical of the Thomas genre; there is some teasing and dishonesty, but the stories always make it clear that this is not proper behavior. Good Read-aloud.

Pam T
Somewhere in the X-burbs

Thomas and the Treasure
by R. Schuyler Hooke

No Reading Level Information Available