The Story of the Little Red Engine

Little Red Engine

by Diana Ross, Leslie Wood (Illustrator)

Once upon a time, there was a Little Red Engine. Every morning, as it passed by, the Little Red Engine would whistle to its friends. But one day, the Little Red Engine didn't arrive. It had never been late before. Whatever could have happened?

Genres: Childrens

32 pages, Hardcover

First published October 4, 1999

About the author

Diana Patience Beverly Ross was an English children's author. A graduate of the Central School of Art in London, she also worked on sculpture and graphic arts and illustrated several of her own books under the name of her cat, Gri.

Beginning with The Little Red Engine Gets a Name (1942), followed by The Story of the Little Red Engine (1945) and seven more volumes, Ross created a series of picture books which followed the adventures of the same character.

Ross wrote several volumes of modern fairy tales for older chldren and also had an un-credited part in the creation of the BBC children's television series Camberwick Green. (wikipedia)

Reviews

[Jennifer (JenIsNotaBookSnob) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edited to add: Decided to quit being lazy and actually look some things up. This feels like a mashup of "The Little Red Caboose","The Little Engine that Could", "Tootles" and "Thomas the Tank Engine". Original publish year for this one is 1940, the first in Awdry's railway series was released in 1945. "Tootles" was also released in 1945. "The Little Engine that Could" first made an appearance in 1930 and the Little Red Caboose is the last in this grouping having been published in 1953.
So, I guess you could say that the 1940's enjoyed quite a surge of train themed picture books for children. The Story of the Little Red Engine wasn't the first of them, but, it was released only a few short years before some of the most popular train books.

I prefer the illustration style of this book over Tootles or The Little Red Caboose. But, story wise, it feels like Little Red Caboose and some of the Thomas stories come out ahead.
Good for the train obsessed youngsters, my daughter probably would have liked it more during her Thomas phase. It is shorter and less wordy than the original Thomas stories.