Locomotive by Brian Floca

Bibliography:

Floca, Brian. Locomotive. Ill. by Brian Floca. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2013. ISBN 9781416994152

Plot Summary:  

A new railroad was built in 1869 for people to travel from the East to the West. A mother with two children depart from Omaha, Nebraska and ride the train to Sacramento, California. During their trip, we learn about the crew that makes the locomotive run and all the parts that make a train operate. We get to experience the the sounds of the train, the details of the trip, and all the work that goes into keeping trains moving. The family is happily reunited with their father.

Critical Analysis:

There is not a regular set of characters in Locomotive. I would say the train is a character along with the traveling family, and the countryside they travel through. This is the story of a trip through a certain time period and there are not any major conflicts. The illustrations move the story along with a logical series of events and a satisfying solution.

The setting is an integral part of the story as the family travels across America. Time is indicated by the movement from place to place and the story going from day to night and back again.

Brian Floca's story is told in a rhythmic, verse-like text that is his distinctive style. He effectively uses onomatopoeia, alliteration (repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of a word) , and repetition throughout the story making this an excellent read-aloud book. The muted, gorgeous illustrations complement Floca's story with intricate details about the train and everything that goes into making it run. Included in the illustrations are the Chinese workers who helped build the tracks from the East, and the African-Americans and Irish who built it from the West.

I thought this was such an interesting book, however, I am not sure if I would read it aloud to a group of students because of it's length. I believe it would be more appropriate one-on-one with a youngster who loves trains.

Review Excerpts:

• Caldecott Medal Winner 2014
• Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
• New York Times 10 Best Illustrated Books of 2013 
• Wall Street Journal Top 10 Children's Books of 2013
• From Kirkus Reviews (starred review)-"Unjustly undersung as a writer, Floca soars with his free-verse narrative, exploiting alliteration, assonance and internal rhyme to reinforce the rhythms of the journey.... Nothing short of spectacular, just like the journey it describes."
• From School Library Journal (starred review)-“ Train buffs and history fans of many ages will find much to savor in this gorgeously rendered and intelligent effort.”
• From the The Horn Book Magazine (starred review)-“Talk about a youth librarian’s dream come true: a big new book about those ever-popular trains from a bona fide picture-book-nonfiction all-star. Striking cinematic endpapers lay the groundwork, describing the creation of the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s. Then, in a sort of historical-fiction-meets-travelogue narrative, Floca zeroes in on one family’s journey from Omaha to San Francisco. Floca excels at juxtaposing sweeping panoramas with intimate, slice-of-life moments: here a widescreen shot of the train chugging across the Great Plains; later a vignette at a “dollar for dinner” hash house.... An author’s note and thorough discussion of the sources used are included, and don’t miss the back endpapers—the steam power diagram would make David Macaulay proud.”
• From the The New York Times-“Older children will appreciate the wealth of detail and history, while younger ones will be entranced by the appropriately chugga-chugga rhythm of Floca’s free verse and his abundant use of sound effects (playfully emphasized with well-muscled, 19th-century-style typefaces)…. He’s a brilliant, exacting draftsman; he also knows how to give his pictures a cinematic energy, especially in the way he “cuts” from page to page. Flipping through this book made me smile with pleasure before I even read it.” —Bruce Han

Connections:

Pair Share- Pair a reading of Locomotive with Elisha Cooper’s Train or National Geographic Kids: Trains by Amy Shields. Encourage students to compare the two books, thinking about travel technologies, passenger experiences, and landscapes.

Discuss examples of how Brian Floca uses language to describe the locomotive and train travel. Give examples of alliteration, repetition, and onomatopoeia found in Locomotive. Have students discuss how the language makes you think and feel about the topic. How does it create meaning?

Create an alphabet book of railroad vocabulary. Show examples of alphabet books so that students understand how this is done. This could be done as an actual book or an a power point presentation.

Visit a website about locomotives, such as:
The Union Pacific Railroad Museum: http://www.uprrmuseum.org
The Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum: http://cprr.org

Gather other books about trains:
The Last Train by Gordon Titcomb, illustrated by Wendell Minor ISBN 9781596431645
Steam Train, Dream Train by Sherri Duskey Rinker. ISBN 9781452109206
Train (DK Eyewitness Books) by John Coiley. ISBN 9780756650322

Gather other Brian Floca books to read such as:
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11. ISBN 9781416950462
Lightship. ISBN 9781416924361
Racecar Alphabet. ISBN 9780689850912