Nana's Book Library

My youngest son loved this book.  We read it aloud for years, from the time he was a toddler.  I would start out with “chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-chug!” and threw in some gratuitous train sounds as we went along. 

            First, the book is darned catchy.  “Chug-a-chug-chug and clickety-clack…Steam is white and the engine’s black.”

            Second, the illustrations are beautiful.  To me, they seem haunting, wistful, of a beautiful rural world, with purple mountains and autumnal colors.  

            Three, it’s just fun to read:  “See that car piled high with logs.  Other one carries a load of hogs.  Three big hogs go rolling along.  They all listen to the freight train song.”

            A little boy, playing with his toy train, waits every day for the train to go by, and waves at it.  The train, with the pigs, cows, chickens, and logs on board, passes by sheep grazing in a pasture and a family in a field of sunflowers.  “Around the bend and up the grade… Strongest engine ever made.”

            It’s just a good, happy book.

This book is available used on Amazon.  It is also available used in paperback and hardcover on eBay and Abebooks.   

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc.