This Train

A concept book for the youngest of train lovers

All aboard! This is one train book you don't want to miss. Using a refreshingly simple approach, Paul Collicutt has crafted the perfect book for young railroad enthusiasts. Each page features a vividly colored and detailed painting of a train, and the spreads show how they are different — long and short, fast and slow, old and new. As a bonus, full-color endpapers feature captioned renderings of real-life engine models from all over the world that were the inspirations for the trains depicted throughout the book.

Simple text and illustrations depict different kinds of trains going uphill and downhill, crossing bridges and tunnels, using electricity or steam, carrying passengers or freight, even when it snows.

A concept book for the youngest of train lovers

All aboard! This is one train book you don't want to miss. Using a refreshingly simple approach, Paul Collicutt has crafted the perfect book for young railroad enthusiasts. Each page features a vividly colored and detailed painting of a train, and the spreads show how they are different — long and short, fast and slow, old and new. As a bonus, full-color endpapers feature captioned renderings of real-life engine models from all over the world that were the inspirations for the trains depicted throughout the book.

Publishers Weekly

Trains in fiesta-bright hues zip through a picture book debut that uses the iron horse to demonstrate simple opposites and contrasts: "This train is in the country./ This train is in the city"; "This train carries passengers./ This train carries freight." The art is highly stylized, and its colors are souped-up: even the "old" train is a brilliant blue-green with orange cars trailing behind; the backgrounds also partake of the turbo-charged palette. The absence of humans and a tendency toward the generic--futuristic skyscrapers, trees that look as if they belong on an architect's model--counteract the art's more painterly features. But young train aficionados will appreciate the impression of speed and power Collicutt achieves, and they'll also enjoy the endpapers with their images of such trains as the Japanese Shin-Kansen, the Santa Fe Super Chief and the French TGV. Ages 2-7. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Paul Collicutt is a freelance illustrator who lives in Sussex, England. This Train is the first book in a series which also includes This Plane and This Boat.