Choo Choo Clickety-Clack!

We certainly have here a comprehensive first look at vehicles: trains, aeroplanes, cars, racing cars, sailing boats, hot-air balloons, motor bikes, cycles, cable cars, buses and ferryboats each fill a double spread. The bright end pages provide a sort of visual contents list. The illustrations, paintings in primary hues, show vehicles filled with all kinds of people – children, adults, elderly folk and family groups with babies and dogs, and of course the drivers and other staff who make the journeys possible. The writing bounces along: text about sailing boats waves across the page and that about racing cars winds round the track. Children will like the onomatopoeic effects; for example we read (in sympathetically ascending text) that cable cars go ‘Up the mountain, swiftly swinging … Shlummp! Whurr-rr! Off they go!’ The sharing adult whether at home or in the nursery school (yes the book is big enough to be used with a group or class) will need to be vocally competent to provide convincing impressions of the different means of transport! An enthusiastic group of participants could prove delightfully cacophonous.