Sleep Train by Jonathan London

Abstract

Reviewed by: Sleep Train by Jonathan London Elizabeth Bush London, JonathanSleep Train; illus. by Lauren Eldridge. Viking, 2018 [32p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-451-47303-5 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-698-18350-6 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad 2-5 yrs Picture book bins hold many literary strategies for getting to sleep, especially for kids immune to time-honored sheep counting. Here London's narrator is in a cozy berth, watching the scenery roll by while counting railroad cars. Yes, there's a paradox here—watching the cars roll by while he's on board the train—but it won't take imaginative superpower for listeners to make the cognitive leap as they follow the handsome little preschooler reading this very book in bed, and then winding up inside a sleeping car. A full view of the ten-car train (plus engine and caboose) is a reference point as London names the cars he counts in verse; it's the verse, though, that derails this effort. Instead of the steady, sleep-inducing cadence that should chug kids off to sleep, the rhythm here is annoyingly inconsistent: "There's a flatbed car (that makes seven!)/and a coach with seats./And there's a dining car/where everybody eats"; "Sleep Train. /Jiggling down that track./But there are ten sleepy cars/going clickety-clack. …" Eldridge's artwork is fully engrossing—model railroad cars and built sets, photographed and computer manipulated into midnight-blue settings, are a daytime delight for young railroad enthusiasts taking inspiration for their own layouts. Those will absorb the attention of young viewers who are less somnolent than their adults had hoped. EB Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois