Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
How to Train a Train
Illustrator: John Rocco
Picture Book
For ages 5 to 7
Candlewick Press, 2013 ISBN: 978-0763663070
If you go to a bookshop you will probably find dozens of books about how to train dogs. There may even be a few titles about how you might train a cat. What you won’t find is a book that will help you to train you pet train. Why would a person want a pet train? The answer is simple: because “Trains make awesome pets – they’re fun, playful, and extremely useful.”
The good news is that anyone who wants to have a pet train can now get a little help thanks to this book. Everything that you need to know to “choose, track, and train” your new pet train can be found on these pages.
The first thing you need to do is to decide what kind of train you want. Are you interested in a freight train, or perhaps a monorail train is more suitable. Once you have made your choice, you have to catch the train you want. You could try cornering it or trapping it using a big net. The train expert featured in this book has his own tried-and-true method that may seem complicated, but he swears by it.
When you get your train home you have to give it a name. Any name will do. Then you have to do what you can to make your train feel at home. It is only natural that the train will be a little anxious at first. A hot bath can calm your train down. Some trains like to be read to, while others respond well to “soft locomotion sounds.”
It is not easy to find helpful how-to books, but thankfully the author and the illustrator of this book know a great deal about trains and their ways. With their help just about anyone can become a successful pet train owner. The wonderful illustrations beautifully show readers the joys of train ownership, and anyone who reads this book carefully will find themselves wishing that they had a pet train of their own.
