Hiawatha Passing

A train passes in the night-despite this extremely simple plot line, Hagen and Shue's debut is a picture book of considerable beauty and power. Spending the night at his grandparents' ``tin-roofed farmhouse,'' a boy hears a train coming. He peers out the spot he's cleared in the frost-covered window (``like a pirate squinting into a spyglass''), sees faces in the train windows and wonders about them. As the train speeds away, ``a shooting star etched a brilliant trail across the velvet black sky.'' Simple, yes, but Hagen and Shue swathe this tale in the wonder and magic of a child seeing the ordinary as extraordinary: ``The rails began to hum. He could almost imagine them turning to color: changing from cold lifeless black to brilliant flame orange, throbbing with energy and promise.'' Shue's oils-inspired, he says, by Edward Hopper-superbly capture the night's enchanted mood, telling little and suggesting much. Inspired by the train called the Hiawatha, the world's fastest locomotive when it was introduced in 1935, this book should hook train lovers of all ages. Ages 5-8. (Oct.)