Trains Run!

Adding to their growing oeuvre of transportation books, the parent/child authors again pair up with Wiggins, this time riffing on all things train. In lively rhyming text, the Lyons touch on everything from toy trains to locomotives to box cars, even including a nod to The Little Engine That Could (“Can a train climb a mountain? I think it can!”). The refrain “Trains run!” repeats throughout, lending the songlike verse an energy seamlessly matched by Wiggins’s vintage-style digital art (an “iron horse/ on its course” is a blur as speeding across a golden field). And for all its forward motion, delightful additions by Wiggins (animals tucked into most spreads, enormous fruits taking up a truck bed) offer myriad amusements to linger over. This team clearly knows what they’re doing—their enthusiastic celebration fully captures the magic and majesty of trains. Ages 4–8. [em](June) [/em]