Night Train: The Goodnight Train by June Sobel

ALL ABOARD! THE SUN IS DOWN.
THE GOODNIGHT TRAIN IS LEAVING TOWN.

FIND YOUR SLEEPERS! GRAB YOUR TEDDY.
CLIMB RIGHT UP! YOUR BED IS READY!

If you are a parent of one of those charming children who yawn over dinner, nod off over storytime, and konk out after one final cuddle every night, count yourself fortunate.

For the majority of kids. who do not go quietly into any goodnight, a ticket on the snoozeland express is a hard sell.

Bedtime reading to the rescue! For the youngest among us, June Sobel's The Goodnight Train, forthcoming from Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt in a handy new board book format, has the formula for keeping kids on track for that end-of-day destination into the land of dreams.

Illustrated ably by Laura Huliska-Beith in appropriately dreamlike images, with a midnight palette of blues, purples, and muted greens, the goodnight train uses an appealing metaphor--a sleepytime train ride in which each pajama- and nightie-clad kid's bed is its ownrailway car. The trip begins with the warm hues of the setting sun, as the ready engine gets its nighttime scrub-a-dub, nose and all, and chugs off cheerily, each passenger tucked in, pillows plumped, in his or her private sleeping car, to huff-puff through the countryside. The train tootles through the countryside, climbing slowly up a wooded hill, rolling and rocking through a dark tunnel with a gentle swing and sway.

ROCK-A, ROLL-A, ROCK-A ROCK-A--
SHHHHHHHHHH! SHHHHHHHHHH!

Over a trestle, through a darkened town, past a sign which promises "Dreamland 20 Winks Ahead," over a harbor bridge under which a mermaid is glimpsed applying night cream to her complexion, and into a broad meadow prophetically filled with fluffy sheep who leap over a fence, the train's speed slows to a clickety-clackety creep, and pulls into its final station just as its riders drift off to dreamland at last.

HOME AT LAST, TUCKED IN A SNUG,
THE ENGINE SNORES A FINAL "CHUG!"
HUSH-A, HUSH-A, HUSH-A, SLEEEEEEEEEEP!

Book your reluctant sleepers a ride on The Goodnight Train, and into the roundhouse of sweet dreams!