Kids, big or little, love things that go. Bright comic cars for the littles? Perfect. But a big kids fascination with trains can be fueled by something more sophisticated and full of information. Read on!
Cars Galore
by Peter Stein
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 978 0 7636 4743 8
Got a car nut on your hand? This book is a sure pleaser for little guys, with bright colours, silly rhymes, and loads of description for building those budding vocabularies. The bouncy rhyme is built for sharing, and you can make a game of deciding which car goes with which label. There are details to pore over, lots of terms to explain, and a thousand things that make this a book to read together many times over. After all, reading together is so not just about reading straight through!
As usual, Candlewick also knocks it out of the park with book design. Page after page of crazy roads filled with wacky cars are illustrated in a jaunty, offbeat retro cartoon style that just makes me smile. The font is well-matched, and the whole package is just highly enjoyable.
Trains
by Lynn Curlee
Atheneum
ISBN: 978 1 4169 4848 3
This book is for the older and fairly hard-core train fanatic. It covers the history of train travel, mostly in America, including various different types of trains, the expansion to the west, and some notable disasters. Ending with a look at the future of train travel, it takes a look at high-speed trains, as well. A wonderful spread at the back also explains how steam locomotives works, for those who like to get right inside their subject.
This book is text-heavy and very much about the information and the story of train travel, but all those words are accompanied by wonderful paintings on every spread in Curlee’s trademark blocky, poster-graphic style. For a railway enthusiast, you couldn’t do better.
I will vouch that Cars Galore is awesome for the little car lover….