Night Train, Night Train
A young boy takes the Dreyfus Hudson locomotive, the night train, in the 1930s or 40s. Sometime during the night the boy falls asleep, but the train continues on. He wakes to his city destination and the brightness of the morning. The simple text is a lovely poem, the cadence of the words mimicking the chugging of a train. The charcoal and pencil illustrations give a shadowy darkness to the night, but colors are introduced slowly, individually, in text and in picture, and then gathered for a stunning pastel dawn. The brightness of the colors against the charcoal is eye-catching, beautiful and educational for children learning their colors. The historical details are mostly limited to a short afterword. Well-written and well-drawn—a great book for a young child.
