Midnight Special: Night Train: A Journey from Dawn to Dusk by Annie Cronin Romano

Night train wakens to the dusk,
Journey starting, day departing--

The romance of the steam train--the rhythm of the rails, the chug and the clatter, the screech of the brakes and the lonesome whistle--all are the subject of Annie Cronin Romano's book, Night Train: A Journey from Dusk to Dawn (Page Street Kids, 2019), on the continuing mysterious appeal of the midnight special, its headlight piercing the dark and its horn blowing for the crossing as it moves through the dark, mostly sleeping world.

Its drivers driving, its smokestack billowing, the night train crosses the trestles over the rivers, pushes through tunnels underground, blows by small stations, dark and deserted, steams by small towns sleeping, snug and safe.

Boxcars rattle, spooking cattle.
steady crawling, never-stalling, night train.

As it passes through dark wheat fields, cattle standing like sleeping statues, or horses racing the train in their fields, perhaps those people lying awake in the wee hours find reassurance that the night train is on duty, getting the goods to people who will be waking soon, moving sleepy people in the passenger cars to their destinations, a trusty servant who doesn't mind working the night shift.

Author Annie Cronin Romano captures that romance of the legendary midnight train in her forthcoming book with lyrical blank verse that conveys the sound and presence of that train as it makes its way, left to right, through the dark world and through her picture book until the break of dawn ends its run, backed up by Ileana Soon's blue-black illustrations of the train and the landscapes it traverses, until it comes to rest, its work done for the day.

Journey finished, dark diminished--
sunlight streaming
finally dreaming
night train.

Says Kirkus Reviews, "Romano's rhythmic poem is filled with repeated sounds, internal rhymes, and evocative imagery...Soothing words and steady rhythm make a solid bedtime story for young listeners..."

For younger sleepyheads, pair this one with Sherry Duskey Rinker's top-selling Steam Train, Dream Train (review here), or for somewhat older bed-goers, share Andrea Rosenbaum's exceptional Trains Don't Sleep (review here).

Gone 500 Miles When the Day Is Done: Trains Don't Sleep by Andria Warmflash Rosenbaum

Rumbling, grumbling, screech and squeal,
Rolling, trolling, wheels on steel.

Puffing, chuffing, never yawning,
Climbing hills as day is dawning.

In the blue dawn of day, a steam train pulls up to a small platform, where a little boy in a railroad cap clutches a ticket and eagerly pulls a parent toward the steps to be the first on board. At the next stop in the city, as a man with his briefcase detrains to greet his family, a pigtailed little girl in a starched yellow dress waves to the boy, already in his seat, as she boards the train, too.

The two share their adventure as the locomotive steams forward, past fields and farms, past forest trees and onto trestles over deep gorges where a single cowboy waves his hat from below.

Canyon sights.
Trains are not afraid of heights.

Through clanging crossing gates, they speed by cars that wait, past sheep who get a wave from brakeman in the caboose, over snowy mountain passes and through prairie grasses, where the two new friends spot a watching jackrabbit in the light of the setting sun. Then, under a full moon, they fly toward a darkened station where only a raccoon, standing staunchly at attention on his haunches, is there to watch the train pass by. And then, again in the dark, the train at last pulls in to another station, their station.

Give the brakes a gentle push.
SHUSH, SHUSH, SHUSH.

Goodnight, travelers.
Off to bed.
Dreams await you just ahead.

As the boy stumbles sleepily off the carriage, the girl turns to wave goodbye, but the train, its lighted windows still softly aglow, is already moving on, with promises to keep and miles to go, with miles to go....

Trains don't sleep--they roll away,
Racing toward a brand-new day.

The romance of the rails is the stuff of Andria Rosenbaum's gorgeous forthcoming book, Trains Don't Sleep (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017). The rocking rhythm of the rails is deftly captured in Rosenbaum's taut and evocative, sometimes onomatopoeic rhymes, and the story, seemingly set in the 1940s, in the misty, nostalgic light of memory and times past, catches the magic of a cross-country train ride for the two travelers completely.

Author Rosenblum's rhythmic, rhyming text is perfectly matched by artist Deirdre Gill's exquisite and elegant oil paintings, with a skillful balance of the human and the mechanical, of closeups and wide-lens views from the passenger train's interior to widespread vistas. With perspective from front and back of the characters and from above the train as it moves through the changing landscape and from below it as it takes the trestle, each two-page spread is filled with details set in lovely vistas. A total tour de force, one set to become a classic of the art of the picture book.

Author and illustrator also give young readers a taste of other trains, a circus train, with its load of dancing bears and poodles in tutus, tigers, and, with a nod to Watty Piper's The Little Engine That Could (Original Classic Edition), a giraffe riding with his head out above the circus car, and a freight train with its tender, boxcars, flat cars, and hoppers. For young trainspotters there is even a glossary, illustrated with thumbnail pictures, of railroad vocabulary.