Phyllis J. Perry

I disliked this book for two reasons. First, the authors’ style of writing lacked flow and was not engaging. While I understand that the book is informational, the facts about trains could have been made significantly more interesting and exciting. Even by simply adding comments like, “Wow! That’s a lot of people!” after a statement in the book regarding how many people worked on the transcontinental railroad, would spice the book up. I also felt as though all of the information about trains was being thrown at me at once. There was too much information on each page and nothing to make the reader intrigued about trains. The second reason I disliked this book is because the pictures made the book even more boring. Since they were historic, they were all black and white and low quality. I almost feel as though the book would have been more likable had there have been no dull pictures from the past included. The book needed some color! The big idea of this book is to inform the reader about the history of trains and how they work.… (more)

This is a children’s book, but I found it to be an excellent book. I just discovered that there was buffalo yarn, and was just on the verge of purchasing a couple of hanks of buffalo yarn when bloody expenses got in my way. So, when I was shelving in the children’s department at the library and this book jumped out at me, well, I just had to take it home. The close-up pictures by the author and her husband were fantastic. They gave a good description of the buffalo history and their uses to make it interesting for young people (and old people). I thoroughly studied the pictures to see where the hair/fur came from to spin into yarn. This is just a stimulus to research further to see how it is done. This book was great reading with lots of pictures.… (more)