Chug Chug! Woooooo! Trains by Charles Reasoner

ALL ABOARD!

Although the boarding call of the passenger train conductor is no longer heard in the land, trains are still an important form of transportation, and as part of his series, Big Busy Machines, Charles Reasoner's Trains! (Big Busy Machines) (Rourke/Little Birdie Books) is a jolly introduction for the youngest book lovers to the wide world of railroading.

Reasoner opens with a view of the station, with ticket windows and schedules of Arrivals and Departure in full sight of the waiting passengers on the platform as the train pulls in.

"TOOT! TOOT!"

An old-fashioned steam engine complete with drivers and smokestack pulls out and heads through the city, across a railroad bridge over the bay with a cheery "toot" to its comrade sight-seeing boat cruising below, and heads out into the countryside where it rolls through hill and dale, field and forest, until, with one last mountain to climb, the little engine heads for home at the station, weary but still smiling.

WOO! WOO!

With the cheery retro look of a Little Golden Book, but with sturdy washable board book cover and pages, this entry in Reasoner's set for young big machines fans makes a good first book about trains and ground transport and a valuable preparation for an upcoming train ride. For a bit more about the magic of train trips, share this one with George Ella Lyons' Trains Run! (Atheneum, 2018) (see review here) or Sherri Duskey Rinker's lovely Steam Train, Dream Train (Easy Reader Books, Reading Books for Children, 2013) (review here).