Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
"Window music" is 1880s railroad slang for passing scenery, and an impressive range of views is what this visual tour delivers. As a girl travels from her grandparents' house back to her home, Suen's (Man on the Moon) simple rhyming coupletsÄ"train on the track/ clickety clack"; "in a row/ oranges grow"Äevoke the rhythm of travel, and offer glancing descriptions of a varied terrain that includes banana trees, an ocean beach and city skyscrapers. In his first picture book, Zahares uses thickly applied paint and strong, geometric forms to create scenery that looks almost sculpted. A wave resembles a curl of plaster; a grape arbor is a tangle of thick wiry tendrils and bulging fruit; the train winds through the very peaks of conical snow-dripped mountains. The trip begins and ends in a docile, realistic station, but in between, the journey takes some surreal turns. This magical excursion is music with several movements, returning readers to a familiar theme in the final stanzas. Ages 3-8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-As a young girl sleeps, a train passes by outside her bedroom window, presaging the day she leaves her grandparents' house to journey home by rail. After waving farewell at the station, the youngster and her mother travel from countryside to city, passing through meadows, orange and banana groves, ice-capped mountains, and seascapes of breaking waves. The scenery is, in fact, the "window music" that entertains the child until the city's skyline looms and Dad awaits at destination's end. This straightforward excursion is conveyed through rhyming text of five-to-six words on each two-page spread. The brevity perfectly captures the staccato rhythm of a rail journey. While simple and direct, there are moments of compelling imagery, "street after street/under our feet," as well as predictable onomatopoeia, "wooo! wooo!/passing through." Zahares's bright and thickly painted palette is wonderfully light-infused. The sinuously curving lines reinforce the loopy track and the panorama, viewed from both inside and outside the chunky train, is ever-changing. The illustrations are idealized and dreamlike, a combination of childlike simplicity and the occasional surreal image. This quick and jolly read-aloud is right on track.-Carol Ann Wilson, Westfield Memorial Library, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool) A child and her mother say goodbye to grandparents and climb aboard a train in the country. At journey's end, they arrive in the city, greeted by the father. But this is just the surface story: the book is much more about the journey than the destination. The illustrations-which seem to be executed in pastels-jump off the page with intense colors and dynamic design. People and objects have been simplified, allowing Zahares to concentrate on how light strikes shapes, casting shadows and bringing out the sculptural qualities of each object. Smooth green fields roll along under a blue sky with perfectly formed white clouds. Purple-tinted shadows imply a warm yellow sun. As the journey progresses, the scenery becomes more fantastic, as if the observer has fallen into a vivid dream. The train veers toward the ocean, passes banana trees and grape vines, and climbs fantastically high on thin trestles that tunnel through snow-capped mountains. Acting almost as background music, the short text underscores the actions and ambiance of each spread, and the absence of capital letters and periods cues the reader to speak in a smooth legato, as one image leads to another: ""train on the track / clickety clack /...street after street / under our feet."" The long morning shadows shorten and then lengthen, until the city appears under a starry sky: ""houses, streets, / the city repeats / into the station, / our destination."" As the family walks away, the train continues its journey, repeating the first line of text: ""train on the track / clickety clack."" A natural choice for bedtime or naptime, this is a book that understands the simultaneously exciting and hypnotic lure of trains-and of ""window music,"" railroad slang for passing scenery. lolly robinson (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Trains make a music all their own with the wheels drumming time as the scenery flies by``trains on the track/clickety clack.'' In simple rhyme, Suen (Baby Born, p. 1196, etc.) conveys the wonder of a girl's train ride home from her grandparents' home, and it's no gray commute. The train goes through orange groves, past banana trees, beaches, and vineyards; the engine strains to climb tall snowy peaks, and races down valleys on its way to the city. Finally, ``into the station, our destination'' shows a father greeting his wife and daughter, who has narrated. In Zahares's first picture book, pastel drawings curve and flow with the train over bulbous hills and chunky tracks; a scene of a sleeping child on the title page implies a dream journey, so the stylized illustrations accentuate objects in adventurous ways, e.g., grapevines that resemble barbed wire, and waves as flat and white as spilled milk. A glowing trip. (Picture book. 3-8)
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