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Alphabet Trains

Author Samantha R. Vamos
Illustrated by Ryan O'Rourke
Ebook
Charlesbridge
On sale Aug 18, 2015 | 32 Pages | 9781607348573
Preschool - 2
Reading Level: Lexile 470L | Fountas & Pinnell K
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All aboard for a train ride through the alphabet! Whether chug-chug-chugging up a mountainside in an Incline train or zipping at super speed in a Bullet train, trains will get you where you need to be—A to Z!

There is a train—some familiar and some unusual—for every letter of the alphabet. Trains are used all over the world for carrying people and cargo from place to place. With a bouncy rhyming text, and clever illustrations full of visual cues, young readers will love learning all about trains.

A companion to the Children's Book Award nominated Alphabet Trucks!

· CCBC Choices 2016: Annual best-of-the-year list of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center.

Writing for children has been Samantha Vamos’ passion for most of her life. Her desire to have her fiction published dates back to her high school days. By age 21, she had developed several stories for children and was determined to have her work published. Her path to children’s publishing, however, ended up being a long and winding journey that involved graduating from law school and working in a law firm before any of her work was published. 

Samantha received a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. Following her graduation from law school, she practiced as a litigator for seven years in an international law firm in Washington, D.C. She later joined a smaller firm in Chicago, Illinois. Samantha stopped practicing law when she became a mother. Currently, she devotes her time to her family and her passion of writing for children. In the future, readers may learn all about Samantha and her family; she aspires to write a book in which she can honor her diverse heritage.

Samantha’s first children’s book, Before You Were Here, Mi Amor (Viking Children’s Books, 2009, illustrated by Santiago Cohen), reflects her interest in celebrating diversity; the bilingual picture book details how a family welcomes their new child into the world. Parents magazine (May 2009) praised the book, selecting it as one of six books nominated “Best for Babies.”

In her second children’s book, The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred (Charlesbridge, illustrated by Rafael Lopez), Samantha once again peppers an English text with Spanish words in a style reminiscent of “The House That Jack Built.” Inspired by a farm maiden stirring a pot (the cazuela), five farm animals assist her with the cooking, contributing ingredients while she stirs. A glossary with pronunciation and a recipe are included in this festive tale about community and food.

Samantha lives with her husband, son, and their 19-year old, ice cream-loving cat in Kirkland, WA. To learn more, visit her website at www.samanthavamos.com.      

View titles by Samantha R. Vamos
For many years Ryan O'Rourke's illustrations have appeared in galleries, newspapers, and magazines, including a weekly illustration for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. One Big Rain marks Ryan's foray into children's picture books. He makes his home in Connecticut. View titles by Ryan O'Rourke
Tear the ticket. Load the freight. Sound the whistle. Raise the gate. Clank! Chug-chug! Whoosh! Alphabet trains.
Copyright © 2015 by Samantha R. Vamos (Author); Ryan O'Rourke (Illustrator). All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
  • SELECTION | 2016
    Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices
A cheerful rhyming text and painterly illustrations created in Adobe Photoshop offer young readers a different train for each letter of the alphabet. The simple text is straightforward without letting the rhyme become cloying: “G is for Glacier Express,/a scenic, alpine glide./H is for Hurricane Turn./Wave a flag to catch a ride.” Each train is featured on its own page, allowing the page turns to reveal the next type of train. A spread ends the book by giving factual information for each of the trains depicted, further enhancing the book’s appeal to train enthusiasts. VERDICT Pair this with Donald Crews’s Freight Train (Greenwillow,1978) and Margaret Wise Brown’s Two Little Trains (HarperCollins, 2001) illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon, for a high-speed storytime.
-School Library Journal


In a companion to 2013's Alphabet Trucks, Vamos and O'Rourke introduce 26 trains as they proceed from A to Z. They make room for general categories like bullet trains and coal trains, as well as location-specific conveyances—like the Xplorer of New South Wales, Australia, and the Q train of New York City's subway system, taking care of a couple tricky letters in the process. Vamos's rhymes are as sturdy as the trains she discusses ("I is for incline train,/ a steep, uphill track./ J is for Jupiter,/ with a wide balloon stack"), while O'Rourke sneaks numerous upper-and lower-case letters into his cheerful digital illustrations, which all but beg to be pointed out by kids as the pages turn.
-Publishers Weekly 

About

All aboard for a train ride through the alphabet! Whether chug-chug-chugging up a mountainside in an Incline train or zipping at super speed in a Bullet train, trains will get you where you need to be—A to Z!

There is a train—some familiar and some unusual—for every letter of the alphabet. Trains are used all over the world for carrying people and cargo from place to place. With a bouncy rhyming text, and clever illustrations full of visual cues, young readers will love learning all about trains.

A companion to the Children's Book Award nominated Alphabet Trucks!

· CCBC Choices 2016: Annual best-of-the-year list of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center.

Author

Writing for children has been Samantha Vamos’ passion for most of her life. Her desire to have her fiction published dates back to her high school days. By age 21, she had developed several stories for children and was determined to have her work published. Her path to children’s publishing, however, ended up being a long and winding journey that involved graduating from law school and working in a law firm before any of her work was published. 

Samantha received a B.A. from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. Following her graduation from law school, she practiced as a litigator for seven years in an international law firm in Washington, D.C. She later joined a smaller firm in Chicago, Illinois. Samantha stopped practicing law when she became a mother. Currently, she devotes her time to her family and her passion of writing for children. In the future, readers may learn all about Samantha and her family; she aspires to write a book in which she can honor her diverse heritage.

Samantha’s first children’s book, Before You Were Here, Mi Amor (Viking Children’s Books, 2009, illustrated by Santiago Cohen), reflects her interest in celebrating diversity; the bilingual picture book details how a family welcomes their new child into the world. Parents magazine (May 2009) praised the book, selecting it as one of six books nominated “Best for Babies.”

In her second children’s book, The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred (Charlesbridge, illustrated by Rafael Lopez), Samantha once again peppers an English text with Spanish words in a style reminiscent of “The House That Jack Built.” Inspired by a farm maiden stirring a pot (the cazuela), five farm animals assist her with the cooking, contributing ingredients while she stirs. A glossary with pronunciation and a recipe are included in this festive tale about community and food.

Samantha lives with her husband, son, and their 19-year old, ice cream-loving cat in Kirkland, WA. To learn more, visit her website at www.samanthavamos.com.      

View titles by Samantha R. Vamos
For many years Ryan O'Rourke's illustrations have appeared in galleries, newspapers, and magazines, including a weekly illustration for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. One Big Rain marks Ryan's foray into children's picture books. He makes his home in Connecticut. View titles by Ryan O'Rourke

Excerpt

Tear the ticket. Load the freight. Sound the whistle. Raise the gate. Clank! Chug-chug! Whoosh! Alphabet trains.
Copyright © 2015 by Samantha R. Vamos (Author); Ryan O'Rourke (Illustrator). All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Awards

  • SELECTION | 2016
    Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices

Praise

A cheerful rhyming text and painterly illustrations created in Adobe Photoshop offer young readers a different train for each letter of the alphabet. The simple text is straightforward without letting the rhyme become cloying: “G is for Glacier Express,/a scenic, alpine glide./H is for Hurricane Turn./Wave a flag to catch a ride.” Each train is featured on its own page, allowing the page turns to reveal the next type of train. A spread ends the book by giving factual information for each of the trains depicted, further enhancing the book’s appeal to train enthusiasts. VERDICT Pair this with Donald Crews’s Freight Train (Greenwillow,1978) and Margaret Wise Brown’s Two Little Trains (HarperCollins, 2001) illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon, for a high-speed storytime.
-School Library Journal


In a companion to 2013's Alphabet Trucks, Vamos and O'Rourke introduce 26 trains as they proceed from A to Z. They make room for general categories like bullet trains and coal trains, as well as location-specific conveyances—like the Xplorer of New South Wales, Australia, and the Q train of New York City's subway system, taking care of a couple tricky letters in the process. Vamos's rhymes are as sturdy as the trains she discusses ("I is for incline train,/ a steep, uphill track./ J is for Jupiter,/ with a wide balloon stack"), while O'Rourke sneaks numerous upper-and lower-case letters into his cheerful digital illustrations, which all but beg to be pointed out by kids as the pages turn.
-Publishers Weekly 

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