Two Little Trains
Two Little Trains
4.5/7
Bookroo
3.6/5
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Two Little Trains

Written by Margaret Wise Brown & illustrated by Greg Pizzoli
Hardcover
$17.99
$16.97
4 - 8
Reading age
40
Page count
9
Words per page
~459L
Lexile measure
Mar 3, 2020
Publication date

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What Does Bookroo Think of This Book

The classic tale from beloved children’s book author Margaret Wise Brown is given a fresh look but loses its storyline.

Readers follow the cross country journey of two trains, a sleek, modern bullet train and a traditional steam engine train. The two trains journey west across long steel tracks as they puff and chug through a variety of settings: over a bridge, through a tunnel, and up a mountainside. In one of the few instances of rhyming in the story, they also “got white and furry” though “still in a hurry” as they travel through a snowstorm. There are reflective notes, like “Look down that long steel track / where you and I must go; / that long steel track and strong cross bars, / before we travel home,” though the text is changed to refer to an “old man singing in the West” rather than “a black man singing in the West.” Pizzoli’s illustrations are playful and abstract, created using custom rubber stamps. While modern and fun, they also greatly change a reader’s understanding of the story from the original 1949 illustrations by two-time Caldecott Medalists Leo and Diane Dillon, which parallel an actual train’s journey and a toy train’s journey. In Pizzoli’s depiction, the story seems lacking in a substantive storyline, making it an actual but confusing, almost pointless journey of an old and a new train to the West that Pizzoli terminates in the middle of a desert.

What Kind of Book is Two Little Trains

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Book Details

ISBN
9780062676511
Publication Date
March 3, 2020
Publisher
HarperCollins
Illustration Details
The artist used custom-made rubber stamps and Adobe Photoshop to create the illustrations for this book.
Page Count
40
Words Per Page
9
Audience
Picture
Reading Age
4 - 8 years
Est. Lexile® Level
~459L
Est. Fountas & Pinnell Level
~M
ATOS® Book Level
3.1
Accelerated Reader® Points
0.5
Accelerated Reader Quiz
50099
Accelerated Reader Interest Level
LG

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