Crossing [Hardcover]

Philip Booth (Author), Bagram Ibatoulline (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

Vivid images in both poem and paintings create a close-up view of a freight train traveling through a crossing—a dramatic experience for young readers.


With the rhythm of its words recalling the cadence of a moving freight train, a poem by Philip Booth is fluidly joined with artwork by first-time illustrator Bagram Ibatoulline in this majestic picture book. Ibatoulline's dramatic and masterful paintings capture the American freight train in its heyday in astonishing detail. CROSSING promises to enthrall train enthusiasts of all ages.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's one of childhood's most time-honored pursuits: counting cars while waiting at a train crossing. Celebrated poet Philip Booth has captured its appeal and unmistakable cadence with precision and wit, backed by the vibrant, nostalgic illustrations of Moscow-trained first-timer Bagram Ibatoulline.

The poem "Crossing" first appeared in Booth's 1957 debut collection, Letters from a Distant Land, so parents and grandparents might have an easier time than kids recognizing some of these freight carriers: "B&M boxcar, / boxcar again, / Frisco gondola, / eight-nine-ten, /Erie and Wabash, Seaboard, U.P., / Pennsy tankcar, twenty-two, three." But the rhythms remain the same, and even if the automobiles stopped at the crossing look like they hail from Havana, kids still won't be able to keep from counting the tankers and boxcars on this old-time steam engine.

Booth still lives in his childhood home, and he's clearly hung onto that wide-eyed perspective in his fast, loose language. Lucky for us it's been preserved and revived--and even enriched, thanks to Ibatoulline--in this sweet and well-executed adaptation. (Ages 4 to 8) --Paul Hughes

From Publishers Weekly

This pairing of Booth's nearly 50-year-old poem (originally published in Letter from a Distant Land) with the exceedingly lifelike gouache paintings of first-time illustrator Ibatoulline is right on track. The artist in style and treatment resembles a Norman Rockwell, but his more painterly approach exudes emotion. He firmly places readers at a rural rail crossing (based on a real one in Brunswick, Maine) as a freight train barrels past. Booth's lyric verse ably suggests the rhythm of the moving boxcars: "Warning whistle, bellclang,/ engine eating steam,/ engineer waving,/ a fast-freight dream." Italicized numbers interspersed throughout the poem keep track intermittently of the trains 100 cars: "fifty-nine, sixty,/ hoppers of coke,/ Anaconda copper,/ hotbox smoke." As Booth introduces a veritable railroad lexicon, Russian-born Ibatoulline treats readers to 16 different angles of the same crossing and creates a sense of the mid-20th-century community through which the train briefly passes. The opening spread presents a bird's-eye view of the railroad junction with only smoke preceding the train in the distance. A few pages later, the artist shows the iron behemoth from a child's vantage, as a boy waves up to the cheery conductor. One entire painting is the reflection of two boxcars in a waiting car's windshield. A group of friends, separated by the train and seen waving through its couplings, unite after the train departs. This slice of Americana is sure to chug full steam ahead into the hearts of train enthusiasts young and old. Ages 5-9.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763614203
• ISBN-13: 978-0763614201
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 10 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,173,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating illustrations, May 4, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Crossing (Hardcover)

My two year old son is nuts for trains. This book is beautifully illustrated and the poem is a wonderful change from the usual toddler book prose. My son and I like this book so much that I have taken the time to write a review! You will be glad you added this one to your child's library.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars feel like your going on a train trip, October 17, 2001

By 

linda faver (south orange, nj United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crossing (Hardcover)

The cover illustrations of crossings is a realistic watercolor of a huge engine in black against a dark night sky. A red and white crossings bar around the cover makes you feel like your waiting for the train to pass the whistle beckoning you to jump aboard.

The issustrations inside are beautifully orchestrated watercolors. Some pages bleed, some pages have a white frame around them, all are authentic looking old fashioned trains. Even the passenger cars waiting for the train to cross are reminiscent of a small twon a long time ago.

Each page is devoted to a different car; box car, gondola, "tank", and a freight car with a caboose bringing up the rear. Children can practice counting the cars as they pass and the rhyming words take on the rhytmic chugging of a train. Each car has a different product inside. While reading the book aloud,the reader feels himself catching the rhythm of the train.

Anyone who loves trains will find this book inviting. My class loved it at story time and I plan to leave it in the book area when we do transportation.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 4 1/2 Brilliant Piece of Americana, February 16, 2009

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crossing (Hardcover)

The 1953 poem by Philip Booth that serves as a series of word pictures was not originally intended for a children's book. However, broken into one and two line of 2-3 words per page(often including numbers), it works: It holds your attention, and mirrors the sights and sounds of the gigantic freight train depicted so brilliantly by Bagram Ibatoulline.

Still, there's no getting past the poetry, and that means that imagery and word sounds may predominate over an easily understood text. However, what imagery! It's muscular and choppy, dirty and noisy and industrial and chalk-through with a thoroughly American vernacular.

Youngstown steel
down to Mobile

on Rock Island track,

Ibatoulline's gouache pictures are on a grand scale, echoing the power and energy of the poem, yet he skillfully introduces a human element: Kids counting the freight cars going by, peering at each other both beneath and above opposite sides of the train, gazing and gaping at the contents; even a man with barely contained patience waiting for all 99 or more pieces of rolling thunder (including introductory engine and the concluding, chased-after caboose) to pass the old railroad crossing and head for points yonder. (Even adults may tend to wax poetic after reading this to their young audience!).

"fifty-nine, sixty,
hoppers of coke,
Anaconda copper,
hotbox smoke,

...Hiawatha,
Lackawanna,

rolling fast
and loose.

The beginning of the poem may seem little confusing, "...count the cars hauling distance through town," but that may be old railroading slang, or simply Booth's description of a railroad's work. You can read this wihtout pausing to think about the meanings and historic allusions, or adults and older readers can do some computer-aided research to track (pun intended)them down: "Frisco gondola," "Eric and Wabash," "Seaboard,"
"Phoebe Snow," "B&O..." I discovered, for example, that Phoebe Snow was a name used in advertising years ago, young singer Phoebe Laub adopted the name much later.

You prpbably know the kind of adult who buys a train set for his kids, but plays with it more than they do. THAT adult is gonna love this book. Your kids might also, if they're not old enough to want to learn the nuts and bolts of railroads and trains, and young enough to eat up the big, dramatic pictures, and the sound of your voice evoking, as Philip Booth does, the sights and sounds of an American masterpiece.