All Aboard!

September 11, 2017
A train expands to reveal five cars’ worth of human, animal, and other passengers in this well-designed foldout board book. Lifting full-page flaps vertically reveals the characters hanging out in the quiet car, dining car, and more: a vampire and knight are among those tucked under blankets in the sleeper car, and as readers move through the train, they follow a boy who is searching for his hat. Additional seek-and-find prompts appear throughout (and on the reverse side of the pages), subtly encouraging readers to pay attention to counting, colors, and other concepts. Zippy cartooning and an abundance of idiosyncratic details make every scene worth poring over. Up to age 3. Illustrator’s agent: Laurie Abkemeier, DeFiore and Company.

January 1, 2018
This delightful board book unfolds to become a train almost 6 feet long with lots to explore in each car.Each page in this concertina-structured book is a train car covered by a big flap, hinged at the top of the page. Lift the flap, and the interior of the car is revealed. Readers can unfold the book to see the train in its full length. Anthropomorphized animals and a multiethnic, multicultural cast of characters constitute the passengers on the train. Colorful cartoonlike illustrations include a gnome, a brawny, kilted white Scot, a scholarly looking bald eagle, a sleeping vampire, and a yoga-practicing giraffe. On the cover readers see a brown-skinned young passenger boarding the train sporting a bright red-and-yellow baseball cap over a black Afro. As the book unfolds, the baseball cap is now missing, and readers will follow the intrepid passenger from car to car on the search for the baseball cap. In each car there are colors to spot, shapes to find, noisy things to identify, and lots of details to take in. On the verso, there is also much to see and identify as the train makes its traverse from countryside to urban setting. Young children and their adult readers will find plenty to keep them engaged.Right on track! (Board book. 3-6)

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