Choo Choo

Like other reviewers, my son loves this book and learned it by heart. We love the artistic style, and my son has given particular attention, over and over, to the lovingly drawn portrait of (what I presume to be) the author's son playing with trains at the front of the book. The language used in the story is a bit dated, but that's OK. I suppose what grates on me, after dozens of readings of this book, is the core lesson that it is better to keep your head down and do your assigned job rather than pursue your dreams. This lesson is reinforced at the end of the book, when Choo Choo happily announces that [SPOILERS follow] she will never run away again and will go back to hauling passengers and mail like she is supposed to. If you look at the entire story arc, Choo Choo vainly dreams of seeing the big city and becoming famous, and runs away to pursue this dream. She runs into trouble when she is overwhelmed by the bigness of the city, then gets lost in the wilderness and literally runs out of steam, where she sits forlorn and is only rescued by the engineer and helpers that she ran away from in the beginning. In other words, in the course of the book Choo Choo did not solve a single problem or overcome any obstacles. She tried to achieve something, failed, was "saved" by her operators, and happily agreed that it would be better to never have tried in the first place. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. It's a short kids' story, and whatever you think of it, this can easily be a teachable moment with your kids one way or the other. It's a quaint reflection of an earlier time when duty and obedience were frequently thought to be one and the same. But this lesson, reinforced over dozens of readings, continues to give me pause, and I just wanted to flag this for other parents. I've still given it a 5 star rating because, at the end of the day, it's a fun book about trains, with wonderful illustrations, that continues to bring my son joy.

My daughter loves this book. Anything by Burton is just fantastic! I am extremely discerning about what books make it on to our home bookshelves, and this one is staying a long while! The story is engaging and the characters relatable, with wonderful illustrations that being the story to life! The illustrations are black and white, but sometimes that is important in a book because it engages the child’s imagination (e.g. “Jim took his red handkerchief and flagged it down.”) :)

Like her other children’s books this is a wonderful story about a runaway train engine that was written in the 1930s. My three year old grandson’s favorite. He role plays the story almost every day. Love it. A wonderful author and illustrator. Have all of her children’s books.

My 3rd son loves trains much more than my 1st who loved them a lot, but...although he doesn't have a ton of words yet and is only starting to put 3 or more words together can tell you the entire plot of this story...fills in the word missing if you stop for a second...points out people in the book as his cat, his grandma, etc...it has everything a train loving kid could ask for including another favorite with sounds and farm animals! Great classic...hope they come out with a board book for those nights when you really need to get them to bed!!! or to take in the car!!!

This is a cute story! Our kids have loved all of Virginia Lee Burton's books so far.

My mom read this to me when I was a toddler. She thought I'd learned to read super early because I'd memorized the story based on whatever picture was on the page. The artwork always fascinated me, and still has a very unique appeal to it. I have purchased this to read to my toddler son, and hope to pass on the family tradition. What a great book!

This is a great story and though written a while back is still fun to read with young ones.

Had this book at a kid. The art is fantastic. The author is a great storyteller of this lost litle engine who takes off without its engineer, firemen and conductor,and along the way, it looses its tender in the river and winds up lost in the woods. Virginia Lee Burton authored other books of this type such as Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, Katy and the Big Snow, The Little House, etc...

I bought this book 25 years ago for my son. He loved it and I have a very good memory of reading this. I bought this book again for my grandson. I hope he (my grandson) and his father have a same experience as I and my son did 25 years ago.

Lovely children’s book with a great moral to the story.

j'aime beaucoup ses superpositions de plans. Graphiquement, c'est une approche qui me séduit car elle permet en peu d'espace (papier) une description complète d'une scène complexe. The Little House en est une autre illustration, c'est le cas de le dire ;-) On retrouve un peu de cette histoire d'un train fou dans " La Tour Sombre, Tome 3 : Terres perdues " ou La Tour Sombre, Tome 4 : Magie et cristal de Stephen King dont il s'est magistralement inspiré.

I like reading this with my son, takes your imagination to the places. Very retro.

I wish I could get other books of the author. I loved the books so much that I cannot give it to child