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.