All Aboard!

Dotlich and Lowery sang the praises of an oft-overlooked piece of machinery in What Can a Crane Pick Up? There’s significantly more competition out there for this companion title about train travel, but Dotlich’s buoyant rhymes and Lowery’s loose cartooning and manically drawn text supply plenty of personality. “Trains whistle through prairies,/ a long, steel sweep./ Through thunder and wind,/ they have schedules to keep,” reads one spread, as Lowery’s lightly anthropomorphized train whistles to itself under a dark sky—smiling down at the train is a single nonthreatening storm cloud, a bolt of yellow lighting dangling like a dog’s tail. It’s a lighthearted ode to the landscape trains traverse, the cargo they carry, and the joy of seeing the sights while riding the rails. Ages 2–5. Agent: Deborah Warren, East West Literary Agency. (Sept.)