#18- All Aboard the Dinotrain

All Aboard the Dinotrain

Written by: Deb Lund

Illustrated by: Howard Fine

Harcourt Inc.
2006

32 pages

Fantasy

I chose this book because of the illustrations. This book has big vibrant pictures that draw a reader in a reader. All Aboard the Dinotrain is about dinosaurs that are traveling on a train. The train is moving slowly so they “dinopush” the carts up the hill, ride up steep hills, duck to miss the tunnels, and crash into a lake where the track ends. The dinosaurs end up getting back home by all of them piling up on a handcar. The dinosaurs make it home and they say they will never ride another train but maybe a plane. Their family was happy they were back.

Howard Fine completed the illustrations in gouache and watercolors. The text is informal text placement around the illustrations. The flyleaf and the end paper are illustrated with pictures of the dinosaurs with their job titles on the train and the type of dinosaur they are. This book is very large and the line is horizontal. This is fitting because the dinosaurs are drawn to scale along with the other objects included in the illustrations. The illustrators use a lot of intense vibrant colors. The scenery is illustrated in a pale or more saturated look that brings attention to the bold colored train and the dinosaurs. The illustrations of the dinosaurs are created with texture. It looks like you can feel their rough skin. The composition or the arrangement of the visual elements seems to be arranged around the train.

This book is appropriate for kindergarten students and up. This book would appeal most to younger boy students. In the science classroom, this would be a great book to introduce dinosaurs especially using the fly leaf and the end paper that list the types of dinosaurs. This book would be useful when learning about railroads for a younger classroom and to teach the students all the different jobs on the train. This book would also be a great resource to show rhyming words. For character education you could teach the students about working together or never giving up. This book has received an award recently in 2012. This award is called the Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book. I believe this book would be great to get students involved in your classroom lesson or just a great read.