Baby librarian Marian and her mommy Margaret review the colorful board book Color Train
Marian reviews Color Train
I’m pretty sure this isn’t a book, whatever Mommy says to the contrary. It doesn’t have pages. At first it looks like it has pages, but it folds out into a long line with nothing to flip through. All my other books have pages. Therefore, I’m pretty sure it’s a toy and not a book.
As a toy, it’s neat to fold it out and see how long it is. And then it’s fun to put it back together and make sure the Velcro sticks. I know how Velcro works because I take my shoes on and off. I can even drag this toy book around behind me, and that’s silly. I like how bright it is too. Mommy says it’s like the train I can see sometimes passing over the railroad tracks close to our house, but it doesn’t look anything like that. It’s way too small to be a train, clearly, though I do like it when Mommy says choo choo so she can pretend it’s a train if it makes her happy. Overall, it’s a good toy, and I think other toddlers like me would like it.
Margaret reviews Color Train
So Marian is a little young to learn her colors yet, but when she’s older, this foldout book will be great because it offers colors beyond the typical red, blue, green etc, though it offers those too. For example, “Little Cézanne painted still, Red apples” while “Little Gwen John painted a Vermilion blouse.” From my experience, toddlers love words of all types, and there’s no need to stick to basics. Vermilion is much more fun to say, after all, than red.
My husband is an artist, so I’m trying to fill our shelves with a good selection of art books. There’s not a lot of art-themed board books (though there are some), so this is a perfect addition to our shelves. Each train car depicts three artists and then one of their paintings below each that contain the color. We’ve only just started showing Marian how to use crayons, but when she’s a little older, I thought we could practice coloring with each color listed in the book, and even try to mimic the type of paintings shown.
As an unexpected bonus, this board book is quite sturdy. We took it outside to play with, as seen in the pictures, and it got quite wet because it had recently rained. It didn’t warp at all though, and the water wiped right off. This is a book that will hold up to toddlers trying to rip it too. Yay for sturdy board books!