Trouble on the Tracks
by Kathy Mallat
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kathy MallatEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-08
ISBN: 0802787711
Number of pages: 24
Publisher: Walker & Company
Book Reviews of Trouble on the Tracks
Book Review: A Tail Within A Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
Even the cover is deceiving.
We see a big black and red locomotive steams towards a dark tunnel, but as "Trouble" gradually reveals, all is not as it seems in this cleverly surprising book. There are sly hints about the real setting, but adults and kids alike will be distracted by Kathy Mallat's bright colors, and tricked by her slyly composed text and detailed but deceptive pictures. Kathy Mallat opens with low perspective pictures of people boarding a train, the conductor shouting: "All aboard! Next stop, Black Cat Crossing."
The train "rumbles through villages where faces are familiar." It speeds along under the engineer's watchful eye, until he spots "trouble" ahead. Soon, the figures watching the train seem unusually static and their faces look indistinct. Many of them point upwards, striking a similar pose--as if they all came from the same mold. Still, it's not enough to give away the surprise, or that there even is a surprise--until the next page, where two large golden eyes stare out at us from a black face, and the engineer yells, "Oh no, Trouble on the tracks." (Note that it's capital "T," Trouble--as in a name...)
Finally, after the train is partially derailed, and trees have fallen (and we begin wondering, "What kind of a book IS this, anyway?), Mallat introduces Trouble the Cat, a cat owned by the "engineer" who constructed the toy train and its realistic-looking town. Mallat changes to human-level perspective, and we seet the black cat dwarfing the train set; suddenly, we notice that the people are posed on barely visible, translucent stands. As the young engineer fixes the train and sounds the whistle, the train once again "rumbles through villages where faces are familiar," and "Trouble" (seen hiding behind "Bapa's Village Store") lurks and waits for another pouncing opportunity.
"Trouble in the Tracks" is an enchanting tail within a tale, and it triumphs both as a straight train book and as a trompe de l'oeil. Like a magician's audience that has been told what to look for, Mallat's reader and listeners are now her confidantes, and they will want to revisit this book looking for clues, proud of their newfound expertise. Some may even get the urge to own a train set, especially if they have their own four-legged "Trouble" at home to complete the create-destroy-repair cycle that makes pretend play so exciting. A wonderful book that will be read many times over.
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