Our Booklist: The Caboose Who Got Loose

I'm really excited about a new list started by Designing Mom Erika about favorite books for kids! Do you have a favorite book that your little one is addicted to and/or a nostalgic one from childhood? Let us know or send your own book review over to us!



From: Erika

"The Caboose Who Got Loose," written and illustrated by Bill Peet

When we had to evacuate from our home for the 2007 Southern California wildfires, "The Caboose Who Got Loose" was the one book I grabbed from S's room. I got the book for him when he was about 2 years old, and we've read it at least once per week since. It's on the long side for a bedtime story (48 pages), but S loves it so much we read it a lot anyway, and John has it pretty much memorized by now. It's a classic story (originally published in 1971) about Katy Caboose, a caboose who dreams of a simple, quiet life not stuck at the end of a long freight train, "to live in the trees where it's peaceful and quiet." The grass is always greener, right?

Written in rhyming couplets, it's fun and easy to read aloud. It was also one of the first books S read by himself, "in his brain," as he likes to say. The charming illustrations are expressive and full of detail. If your little one is into trains, this is a wonderful addition to your bookshelf.

above: S shows his favorite page, when the huge engine goes to the roundhouse for repair. After I shot the photo he said, "so can I get back to reading this now?"