LISTEN UP! TRAIN SONG

Locomotive-loving storytimers rejoice! Your newest read-aloud is here. “Whoooooo! Chooooooo!”

In this bouncy follow-up to Allenby’s Shape Up, Construction Trucks! (2020), rhythm carries readers along the rails. “Where do the trains go? / There and back. / Let’s sing a train song / All down the track.” After this opening, double-page spreads introduce different train-related vocabulary and associated onomatopoeia. Large, colorful, close-up stock photographs of trains accompany the different sounds they’re capable of making. The engines go “Chuff-a-gruff-a!”; the metro sings “Whoooosh! Swoooosh!”; the boxcar says “Rattle-tattle!”; and more. Participation possibilities abound with the consistently inventive train sounds, and the bright and colorful images will be easy to see from across a room. (Lap readers may notice that the metro photograph seems to be backward.) Notes at the end of the book offer adult readers different ways to connect the book to rhythm and song. It may not be possible to sing each page in one fell swoop (despite the book’s repeated encouragement to “sing a train song”), but with some practice the youngest train fans will enjoy being asked to replicate the wide range of songs inside.

All aboard! The littlest readers with a yen for the rails are bound to bounce with delight.