"When Katy Caboose rambled down the train tracks, the engines were steamers with puffing smoke stacks. She was a caboose who disliked being last, with an endless black cloud of smoke rolling past." So begins Bill's Peet's charming story about dear old Katy Caboose, who wishes more than anything to live a life uncoupled from her train amidst the quiet forest pines. I could go on. And on. For the whole 48 pages of this fabulous book, actually. I'm not kidding. That's how many times we have read this story since receiving it as a gift when my son turned two. When I first looked through it and saw how long it was, I thought it might be a bit much for him to get through. His favorite books at the time were still mostly board books, few of which took more than several minutes to read. The first time we read The Caboose Who Got Loose, though, I was impressed by how well it captured his attention. Bill Peet's rhyming, lyrical lines make reading it fun and listening to it even better. (They also make the book quite conducive to memorization, as I soon found out.) It wasn't long before I could recite the whole story to my son from memory, which was quite helpful given that he always wanted to read it again after we had turned out the light. The story line is clever, and Peet really brings Katy to life with her emotions, desires, and fears. I don't know why, but for some reason I also love the fact that Katy is a girl caboose. When we're actually reading about Katy's adventures from the book and looking at the pictures, my son also loves to count all of the train cars in the illustrations and find Katy in each one. Although my son is all boy in his obsession with trains and wheeled vehicles, I think this delightful story would appeal to girls, too. It's cute, fun, and a joy to read!
2 comments:
This is one of our favorites, too! In fact, we borrowed it from a little girlfriend of my son's and just might have to buy it because it's always out at the library!
Have you read "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crocket Johnson? It's a delightful tail of a boy's imaginary adventures with his purple crayon.
I'm glad you love this one, too! I think we have a copy of "Harold and the Purple Crayon" somewhere that someone handed down to us, but I'm not sure where. I'll have to look again and see if I can find it. Thanks for the suggestion! Amazon is selling a paperback copy of "The Caboose Who Got Loose" with an accompanying cd for only $8.79 if you're looking for your own copy. You can see it directly if you click the link on the amazon widget on here. The most recent post shows up last on the amazon list -- page 4. They don't sell the paperback only from what I can tell, but Barnes and Noble has it for $8.50 online or $8.99 in stores. Sounds like our little ones have similar tastes in books!
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