And the Train Goes

And the Train Goes. William Bee. 2007. Candlewick. 32 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: Here is the station all noisy and full, and the station clock goes tick-tock, tickerty-tock...and the man in the station office cries, "Hurry up! Hurry up! Any more tickets...?"

Premise/plot: I guess the point of this one is to make adult readers make a lot of silly noises out loud? There is a definite repeated pattern. "Here is the..." and "And the train goes..." The sounds themselves don't repeat all that often--until the ending when a parrot says all the sounds over again.

My thoughts: I was disappointed. It is not as obnoxious as say, The Wheels on the Bus. But I think it's a missed opportunity of a great train book with familiar, repeated train noises. For example, why is the fireman MUTTERING "shovel-shovel" to himself. That's not an onomatopoeia. It doesn't even make for a good story. For me, this one just lacks something.

Text: 2 out of 5
Illustrations: 2 out of 5
Total: 4 out of 10


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