Train to Somewhere

Bunting, E. (1996). Train to somewhere. New York: Clarion Books.

Train to Somewhere fits well into to the picture book category with its use of beautiful pictures that aid in the telling of this wonderful story. The story is a narrative one as Marianne recounts the tell through her eyes. This book immediately caught my attention as I was combing through our school library searching for books.  The cover of the book featured an illustration that seemed to me was a type of impressionistic art because the children do not have facial detail.  This allows the reader to impose their own images upon the children and make the story one they can relate to.  Also, the first image of this book is of two small children standing alone at a train station with the title Train to Somewhere looming above the illustration.  The cover illustration featured a train closer to the foreground with the children further back making the girls seem smaller.  As the reader progresses through the book the cover art brings home the fact that these children faced a truly daunting experience. 

I loved how the illustrations and text in the book coincide with one another.  This book is a picture storybook with the author telling the story through the text on one page and illustrations on the neighboring page.  The illustrations are framed (with the exception of a few sketches of the train as it leaves, travels, and arrives). The story features fictional characters and fictional places about an event that was very real.  In the story a group of fourteen orphans board a train in 1850's New York City bound for the Midwest.  The children are homeless and the Children's Aid Society is placing them with familes that live on farms and in small towns throughout the Midwest.  The story reminded me of many students that I have taught or known in my school.  These students did not board a train bound for another part of the country but they face challenges that are similar in that they have lost parents (due to jail, death, etc.) and have been removed from their home and some cases moved to families they are not related to.

The reading level of this book is second grade level but could be used with higher grades escpecially during a social studies unit.  Students could take the setting of the story and research true stories that stem from this period in American history.  The teacher could then allow students to answer open-response questions for the book.  Example questions would be:  Why do you think the author called the town in this story Somewhere.  Another activity for this book would be to allow a student or group of students to retell the story using the pictures.