Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Locomotive by Brian Floca



Age Range: 4 - 10 years
Grade Level: Preschool - 5
Lexile Measure: 840L
Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books
Published: September 3, 2013
Honors: Caldecott Medal Winner, Sibert Honor Book


Book summary from Amazon:
It is the summer of 1869, and trains, crews, and family are traveling together, riding America’s brand-new transcontinental railroad. These pages come alive with the details of the trip and the sounds, speed, and strength of the mighty locomotives; the work that keeps them moving; and the thrill of travel from plains to mountain to ocean.

My Review:
Brian Floca’s Locomotive is an excellent nonfiction choice for kids. There are a lot of illustrations in this book, and the detail is amazing. This book is written in narrative- verse form.




The details about locomotives are fun, and informative—without being too overwhelming. The amount of illustrations and the detail of them makes this book an excellent nonfiction book for kids, it doesn’t feel like a “traditional” non-fiction book. The image below is an example of how detailed with the little thing Floca is:





There are a ton of words in this this book which does kind of make it a chore to read aloud, but because of the illustrations and the fun verse format the kids love to hear it, and like to just look through it on their own at times.








  My older readers like the history and map in the front of the book, and the detailed illustration and information on the steam engine on the inside of the back cover.




There is one issue I could potentially see for the illustrations in this book—cursive writing:
In several places Floca uses cursive writing in several illustrations, this is potentially problematic for future children because cursive isn’t really taught in schools these days, and cursive is really becoming a dying art.



Overall my youngest nephew and I really enjoyed this book—so much that he got it for his birthday.

3 comments:

  1. Leigh,

    Great objective view of this book. I like how you approach it from the view of multiple age groups and from multiple dimensions such as the writing, the illustrations, and from a parent's perspective when it comes to reading it aloud! Great screenshots, too. This would be a great book to use in an elementary Social Studies class from the way you describe, and parents who wish to potentially spark an interest in cursive writing with their children could potentially use this book, as well--not only is it fading from curriculum, but from the world in general!

    - Taryn

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  2. I think that award books are great reads for children. Books with lots of detail are great. The detail in the text offers more for the discussion about trains. The detail to the illustration offers a very rare look at trains that most children never get. Thank you for your honesty about the amount of words causing this to be a bit difficult for a read-a-loud. Also thank you for the advanced notice about the cursive writing.

    Good Review!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think that award books are great reads for children. Books with lots of detail are great. The detail in the text offers more for the discussion about trains. The detail to the illustration offers a very rare look at trains that most children never get. Thank you for your honesty about the amount of words causing this to be a bit difficult for a read-a-loud. Also thank you for the advanced notice about the cursive writing.
    Good Review! 
    Felecia Tate 

    ReplyDelete