Freight+Train



= Freight Train = Author: Donald Crews Reading Level: Ages 4-8 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Language: English ISBN# 9780688117016 Format: Paperback Pages: 24

__Summary__: The book //Freight Train// is a simple story about a train that is moving on the track. The train chugs along the track among city skylines, across a trustle bridge through the day and night.

__Book Review__: This is a wonderful book for young children. It has a simple text with bright, colorful illustrations designed to draw the reader into the story. These illustrations also highlight the colors of the train cars. For example it says" yellow hopper car, green cattle car." Readers will also understand that the train is speeding along the track as the colors blur together. Crews uses simple text in this book so it would be a good book for early readers. There are repeating words to help the reader gain confidence in their reading skills. This book will be an asset to help young readers practice their color and counting skills as they identify these throughout the book.In addition to helping with color identification, they also learn the proper name of the different types of train cars. This book is a must for all those young train lovers in your life!

__About the Author:__ Donald Crews is an author and illustrator of many children's books. He was a graphic designer and was tinkering with an alphabet book for his graphic designer portfolio, when friends urged him to have the book published. That was the start of his famous career as both illustrator and author. The name of the book was "A to Z." Since then Crews has written such famous books as //Ten Black Dots//, //Sail Away//, //Trucks, Harbor, School Bus// and many more. He is the receiver of two Caldecott Awards for the books //Freight Train, Truck// and //Ten Black Dots//. He says that much of his inspiration for writing these books came from his own travels. He was inspired by the various landscapes and modes of transportation.

In his personal life, Crews is married and has two children. One of his children inherited her father's graphic and literary talent as she also writes books. Currently he and his family live in a restored farmhouse in Hudson River Valley area of New York.

__Literary Element Analysis:__ Crews relies heavily on imagery in this book. The illustrations are bold, bright and dramatic. He uses a white background as a backdrop and makes the pages explode with bright colors of red, blue, orange, yellow, blue, purple and black. These bright colors draw the reader to the train and its movement on the tracks. One of the most dramatic effects of this imagery is when the train is going through the cities, over the trestle and through the night. Crews blurs the colors to give the effect of the train speeding on the tracks. This blurring is a highly effective way of showing the speed of the train. This allows young readers to picture the speeding train in their mind. Reading Book

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Donald Crews