The Last Train by Kim Lewis is much more than a story about a ghost of a train that makes one last run across tracks that aren't there anymore. You'd think that would be enough of a story right there! But Kim Lewis, the author and illustrator, does something much more profound in this very lovely and magical children's picture book.
Even the cover art shows that something "out of the box" is happening, for the steam from the train billows right out of the framed illustration and off the edges of the cover ~ into space.
Two children, Sara and James, find an old hut where the railroad men used to have their coffee when they were working on the tracks. The hut is in ruins. But it is here that the children begin to imagine the last train.
Sara and James coax their parents into helping them fix up the old railway hut. They work together all day until Sara hangs a red handkerchief on the old fireplace, and "a crack of lightning split the hot air just as low rumbles swelled from the hills."
And the last train comes thundering in out of the thunderstorm.
Only the children see the last train. But it is made very real not only in the illustrations, but also in the words. That night when they tell their parents that they saw the last train, what do Mom and Dad reply?
"Of course you did . . ." they said and smiled.
I love it that what these two children saw is sanctioned in this book. It is not written off as only a dream, or only the thunderstorm, or only imagination.
Only imagination!
Now there's a thought to ponder ~ as if something that is "only imagination" is less than something that is "real." I can remember how I felt as a child when I came to the end of a story and found out that "it was only a dream." I always felt so disappointed. Betrayed, even.
So I really love finding children's stories where imagination is allowed to be real. It makes me stop to think that it is in the imagination of scientists and artists and thinkers of every ilk that our world is imagined and re-imagined, made and re-made, invented and reinvented, in ways that 8th century or 18th century peoples would have never imagined, to put a very bold point upon the word "imagined."
Well, as far as I can tell, this wonderful children's picture book is out of print, but there are four copies available in the Austin Public Library, so I am hoping that you can find a copy in your local library, too, and there's a good chance you might be able to find used copies on Amazon. If you scroll down "below the fold" on the Amazon page for this book, you will find reviews by School Library Journal and Kirkus. The back of the book itself says "Age 4 and up," but Kirkus says "3+" and School Library Journal says "Kindergarten-Grade 3."
I love The Last Train because it is written in words that would be just as wonderful to find in an adult novel, but somehow it is even more wonderful to find them here in a children's picture book.
You can also find more books by Kim Lewis on her website here.
And I hope your weekend is full of trains, either real or imagined, and that at least one of your trains takes you to that most wonderful of all destinations: Imagination. A place on the map of the world well worth the journey ~ anytime!
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