Riding the Rails: Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Kevin Lowe

SUN'S UP. MORNING'S HERE! 

UP AND AT 'EM, ENGINEER!

CHUGGA CHUGGA CHOO CHOO!

WHISTLE BLOWS. 

WHOOOOOOOOO! WHOOOOOOOOO!

A Teddy bear and all the toys wave to the engineer and boy as the train as a clown oversees the loading of boxcars and the choo choo pulls out of the station. The old-fashioned locomotive, drivers driving, begin the journey, pulling a coal car, freight cars, and a red caboose. The train winds through the room under a chair and over its rocker as train lovers, a man and boy, a cowboy on horseback, and a barking dog watch it pass. Through the Box Mountains and wooden-blocks pass the little train goes. And then...

INTO THE TUNNELS, UNDERGROUND.

SEE THE DARKNESS, HEAR THE SOUND! WHOOOOOOOOOO!

Then the train crosses the long bridge over the river, and not far ahead is their destination--the city. A dog walker waves to the boy and the engineer as the train slows down for the station, where strong workers wait to unload the freight--a box of penguins and a box of dog bones come off first as the boxcars grow empty.  And then, down goes the sun.

THE JOB IS DONE!

And into the roundhouse the engine, coal car, freightcars, and caboose all head.

It getting dark and it's time for bed, in Kevin Lowe's vintage choo choo story, Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo (Disney Hyperion). With jolly rhymes and the rhythm of the rails, this old-fashioned little train story takes young children gradually and gently toward bedtime, as Daniel Kirk's illustrations mix rounded Playskool-type figures and geometric shapes in soft, muted pastels. Kirk is also the noted illustrator of the popular Library Mouse series, Ten Things I Love About You, and his 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. (See reviews here.)

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).