Pooh and His Pals Become Cowboys, Pirates and Old-Fashioned Superheroes

Winnie the Pooh and his Hundred-Acre friends generally live very simple lives and go about in the same clothes (or, in most cases, lack thereof) day after day. However, one fun thing about the television series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is its expansive imaginative scope. Some episodes allow these plush pals to venture into more unconventional territory. In Cowboy Pooh, part of the Playtime series of Winnie the Pooh videos, we see three episodes along these lines, each spoofing a specific genre.

The Good, the Bad and the Tigger - This Western spoof, also included in the video Growing Up With Winnie the Pooh: It's Playtime With Pooh, finds Pooh (Jim Cummings), Piglet (John Fiedler), Rabbit (Ken Sansom) and Tigger (Paul Winchell) in Christopher Robin's (Tim Hoskins) bedroom admiring his elaborate train set. When his mother calls him away, he warns everyone not to play with the train while he's gone, but Tigger can't resist, sparking a lengthy imaginative sequence set in the Old West. Tigger is a train robber, Pooh is his unwitting accomplice, Piglet is the sheriff determined to mete out justice however difficult that may be, Rabbit and Eeyore are his faithful sidekicks and Gopher (Michael Gough) is the grim judge eager to hand down a sentence for a "swinging."

This episode is a lot of fun because of the way it uses Western conventions, from dastardly villains to dusty, half-deserted towns. The score seems Copeland-inspired, and the chase sequences along the rickety railroad tracks prickle with excitement. Lots of fun, too, are the outfits, complete with ten-gallon hats (and one sombrero). Of course, this being Pooh, the story ends gently for all concerned, but some pretty harrowing situations precede the satisfying resolution that includes a lesson in forgiveness and fessing up to wrongdoing.

Pooh Marks the Spot - I wish I'd watched this video a little sooner; I could have included its infectious pirate ditty in my list of nautical songs for Talk Like a Pirate Day in September. "Yo ho, everyone knows a pirate's life is free. Yo ho, wherever we go, pirates is what we'll be!" Catchy. The pirates in question are Captain Piglet, Tigger, Pooh and Gopher, who roam the Hundred-Acre Wood in a magnificent pirate ship on wheels. I don't know who is responsible for the construction of that contraption - though I suspect a collaboration between handyman Gopher and creative Tigger - but I wish I had one. And someplace where I could ramble around in it, of course.

Rabbit does not think so highly of their pirate activities, especially once they start digging up his garden in search of buried treasure, so he concocts a plan to trick them and hopefully curtail their revelry. However, when a trippy dream sequence leaves him with a boatload of guilt, Rabbit wonders if he went too far. Aside from the brief dream, which is frankly pretty creepy, this does not take place in a fantastical setting, but there are pirate costumes aplenty as well as that remarkable ship. The conclusion includes a cute twist that emphasizes the kindness and creativity of these forest friends.

The Masked Offender - I'm pretty sure that I've seen this before, but as Tigger's secret identity, the Masked Offender, is all I remember, I wonder if I encountered it in another episode or perhaps a book. The rest of the story doesn't seem very familiar. In any case, this is another entertaining tale that seems to draw from classic heroes like the Three Musketeers and Robin Hood. Part of the episode occurs within a storybook Christopher Robin is reading, and this is where we find the most elaborate costumes and props, but Tigger doesn't do too badly in coming up with an outfit for himself after the story inspires him to follow suit.

There's humor in Tigger's choice of name, unintentionally changing "Defender" to "Offender," since all of his attempts to "rescue" others only serve to irritate them. Poor Piglet, roped into being his sidekick, doesn't know how to tell Tigger his heroics are not welcome. This is another episode that includes a mean-spirited practical joke orchestrated by Rabbit, but in this case, he doesn't work alone. Owl (Hal Smith) is particularly anxious to put a stop to Tigger's stunts. However, when a true emergency beckons, will a chastened Tigger step up to the plate to finally be a true hero? The storybook portions of this episode are great fun, but it's the intense action sequence involving one of those impossibly steep Hundred-Acre Wood canyons that really makes this episode.

Disney has released Winnie the Pooh Halloween specials before. Cowboy Pooh includes none of those, but the three episodes, taken together, feel Halloweenish because most of the characters spend the majority of their time in costume. Thus, this is a particularly good video for October, but any time of year, it may just inspire a creative playtime costume or two.

The Bob-Whites Hit the Big Apple in The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

I’ve been to New York City a couple of times and spent just enough time there to know that you could stay a year and not get the full experience of everything the city has to offer. Intriguing sights await on every corner. As a vacation destination for a group of chummy teens, it’s “wonderfully wonderful,” to use the phrase favored by Barbara, one of three faraway friends who flies to New York to meet up with the Bob-Whites in The Mystery of the Blinking Eye, the twelfth book in the Trixie Belden series. But just sight-seeing like a typical tourist is not sufficient for intrepid 14-year-old super-sleuth Trixie. She has a knack for stumbling into mysteries wherever she goes, and here in the Big Apple, she blunders her way into a humdinger.

Earlier books in the series have established that Trixie has rather eccentric tastes, so it’s not too surprising when she goes gaga for an ugly Incan idol she discovers in an antique shop. What’s more startling is the fact that her peculiar souvenir has attracted the intense interest of some pretty shady characters. Trixie and her fellow Bob-Whites – sweet best friend Honey, grandiloquent Mart, practical Brian, gallant Jim, elegant Diana and reformed Dan – have all been to New York before, but they’re thrilled to be giving their Iowan pals – twins Barbara and Bob and their neighbor Ned – the grand tour. But whether they’re taking a carriage ride through Central Park, perusing the Museum of Natural History or ascending the Empire State Building, shadowy men lurk nearby, and they clearly want that statue for themselves. Why? And how can Trixie stop it from falling into those nefarious hands?

The questions of what’s so special about this knick-knack and who these men are should pose quite enough mystery for one volume, but the ghost writer adopting the name Kathryn Kenny for this volume decided to make things even more enigmatic by introducing yet another odd element: a prophecy given to Trixie by an elderly fortune teller she assists in the airport. More precisely, the woman gives Trixie a purse, and in the purse is a poem written in Spanish. Trixie’s curiosity consumes her, and she begs Miss Trask, Honey’s former governess who is serving as chaperone on this trip, to translate it into English for her.

When I was in high school, I wrote rhyming poems in French for the school’s literary magazine on two occasions. I then translated them into English. And let me tell you, it was a heck of a lot easier to write the poem from scratch – even in another language – than to translate it and leave both form and meaning intact. But what does Miss Trask do? She sits down with a pen and paper and painstakingly translates that poem. Ten couplets and, for no particular reason I can discern, one set of three rhyming lines. Half an hour later, she has a poem that sounds a lot like gibberish but nonetheless rhymes perfectly and displays nearly seamless iambic tetrameter throughout. Either Miss Trask is some kind of poetry translating savant or this little feat is just as unbelievable as the contents of the poem itself.

Trixie sees the prophecy as a treasure map of sorts, a guide to unfolding events, though it only ever seems to make any sense in retrospect. What the poem mostly does is serve as a structure for the book, with something in every chapter corresponding to a couplet or two. It’s awfully involved for a prediction, and it’s mostly just a series of abstract images. As Miss Trask firmly states late in the book, “A person can twist words to get almost any meaning out of them he wants.” Trixie may have her career path all laid out before her, but if for some reason she decides she’d rather pursue something less harrowing than detective work, she’s got a real future as an English major. She certainly displays an aptitude for making tenuous connections.

Poetry comes into play in a more natural way as Bob and Barbara entertain first their friends, then a wider audience with tragic ballads they wrote themselves. Between the prophecy and the songs, which have a certain folksy charm about them, particularly considering that they were supposed to have been written by teenagers, that’s a lot more rhyming than I’ve seen in any other Trixie Belden book. This leads me to suspect that this particular Kathryn Kenny was a frustrated poet.

Along with the poetry, literary references abound here. Sherlock Holmes gets a nod in almost every book, and this is no exception. We’ve also got Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and Hans Christian Andersen, and Mart made me chuckle by mentioning the mighty mouthful Mephistopheles, since I imagine that the unwieldy nature of the name is the main reason he brought it up. My biggest smile, though, came early in the book when, during a trip to Central Park, the Bob-Whites-plus-three observe several park-goers floating boats out on the nearby pond. I immediately thought of Stuart Little, so I laughed aloud when, a couple paragraphs down, Honey said, in reference to a boy with a boat, “He makes me think of Stuart Little in E. B. White’s book.” Right there with ya, Honey…

This is the first time that all seven Bob-Whites have taken a trip together. Indeed, Dan, who made his first appearance in the eighth book, all but dropped out of the series for the next three, so it’s nice to see him so involved here. He’s lost the angst that he had when we first met him, but he remembers his street rat days well enough to play a vital role when Trixie tangles with a tough crowd in a scene that makes her ill-advised trip to the Skid Row of Sleepside, NY, in the fourth book look like a cakewalk. Mart treats his buddies to a magic show; Diana shares an unsettling experience with Trixie at the Empire State Building. Everyone has at least one moment in the spotlight.

Other characters still have room to emerge, however. Along with the affable Ned and Bob and the exuberant Barbara, we’ve got Honey’s father and those shifty men who keep tailing Trixie. The most memorable new character is Dr. Joe Reed, a physician and family friend who invites the teens over to have a look at his model railroad. I grinned as I imagined Big Bang Theory’s locomotive-loving Sheldon Cooper geeking out over the intricate display. And speaking of geeking out, I love the way that normally reserved Brian wears his Hippocratic passion on his sleeve when Dr. Reed shows them around the hospital where he works.

For those whose passions include the Bob-Whites, The Mystery of the Blinking Eye is really the first book in the series to integrally involve all seven of them, and certainly the first away-from-home adventure to include them all. Between that and the exciting setting, this is a great installment, even with that absurd prophecy underpinning their New York adventure.

Cormac McCarthy Infuses Bleak Dystopia With Faint Hope in The Road

During my recent long (yet all-too-short) weekend in Massachusetts with my friends Erica and Art, the subject of movies came up often. As all three of us consider ourselves enthusiasts of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, any film involving a former cast member tends to be of interest, so I expressed my desire for The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen, to hit theaters, which was supposed to happen last year. "I feel like I really need to see it, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to stomach it," I confessed. My first assertion came from Mortensen's involvement; the fact that part of the movie had been filmed in my hometown (during which time I rather regrettably resisted the urge to attempt to crash the set); and Cormac McCarthy. After No Country For Old Men left me stunned with its cinematic splendor, I figured McCarthy must be a golden novelist and that another film adaptation of one of his books, however bleak, would be similarly rewarding. However, apocalyptic dystopias have never been my cup of tea, so concerns bubbled at the back of my brain. In response, Art issued a dire warning.

"You need to be prepared," he told me, explaining that reading The Road was one of the most emotionally wrenching literary experiences of his life. That he'd read it all in one sitting, so intensely mesmerizing was this tale of a father and son clinging to one another in a world where hope itself seems to have become an anachronism. And that it had been devastating. I was still trying to determine whether the endorsement overpowered the disclaimer when I spotted a mass market copy of the book at a gift shop in Albany, the halfway point on my homeward train trip. I'd been flipping through David Sedaris's latest collection and seriously considering purchasing it, but The Road stopped me in my tracks. Upon examination, I suspected that I could finish it in the time it would take for me to get to Erie, which certainly wouldn't have been the case with my favorite contemporary humorist's tome. I was rather taken with the notion of digesting an entire book during my train trip, as well as spending the waning hours of Fathers' Day immersed in what sounded like one of the most powerful father-son relationships ever explored in a novel. Plus, I'd just spent the last five days embracing my inner Took; I figured I'd better go for the gusto before I went back to being a mild-mannered Baggins.

So I bought the book, and I opened it, and I read it with only a few brief interruptions. Half an hour before we pulled into Erie, I turned the final page. It was mesmerizing. It was devastating. It was well worth the eight dollars. And now that I've emerged from the book unscathed, I've no doubt I can handle the movie. I sometimes think I don't give my nerves enough credit.

After I saw No Country with my dad and brother, I was so affected by it that I decided I needed to read the book. So I got it out of the library, but before I had gotten very far, Dad nabbed it, and by the time he finished it I was preoccupied with other things. I do intend to read it one day, but at least the first few chapters were able to provide me with a cursory familiarity with McCarthy's writing style. I was hoping that the lack of quotation marks might have been limited to one book, but I soon found that punctuation was just as rare in The Road. That seems to be a McCarthy trademark, and I confess to sometimes finding it confusing, though more so in No Country, I think, in which there are more characters to deal with.

Also perplexing to me, especially at first, is his use of apostrophes. Some contractions have them, many don't, and it all seemed very random until I started really paying attention and discovered that every word in which the apostrophe is included hinges on a noun, while the words with the missing apostrophes consist only of other parts of speech. I didn't read far enough into No Country to pick up on a pattern there, so I don't know if that's an across-the-board system he's worked out or if it's intended to say something about the world he's created. Maybe both. I like the idea that apostrophes are a link to culture and civilization, and that verb-centered contractions aren't strong enough anchors. That it doesn't suffice to go on simply for the sake of surviving, but that the right noun - the right person - can provide motivation not only to live, but to retain elements of society that otherwise appear outdated. Maybe I'm trying to read too much into a simple grammar choice, but I may never look at an apostrophe the same way again.

The rejection of traditional structure manifests itself throughout the novel in more ways than one. The book is nearly 300 pages long, yet it is not broken up into chapters - though there are large spaces between paragraphs. Additionally, the two main characters - the only two characters for most of the passages in the book - are never given names. They are "the man," also referred to by his son as "Papa," and "the boy". Refusing to name these characters seems a powerful step toward dehumanization, a removal of identity to go along with the dissipation of all that is familiar, so that each truly is "the other's world entire."

The boy's age is not specified so far as I can tell; I imagine him to be about eight or nine, though the boy who plays him in the movie was about 12 during filming. He is frail and fearful and has about him the inquisitive nature of a young child, along with near-absolute trust in his father, though the man reflects at one point that in an ordinary world, the boy probably would have begun to pull away from him by this point. The mother is the subject of several painful flashbacks, but much about her remains shrouded in mystery, as does the event itself that has led the world to ruin. It seems to have been some sort of nuclear holocaust, judging by the fine covering of ash that has rendered the entire landscape grimly pallid; I imagine an idyllic final day of normalcy, to the backdrop of Ian Campbell's The Sun Is Burning. Its culminating verse seems custom-written for this book: "Now the sun has disappeared. / All is darkness, anger, pain and fear. / Twisted, sightless wrecks of men / Go groping on their knees and cry in pain / And the sun has disappeared."

One of the reasons I loved No Country so much was the terse humor of small-town eccentrics reminding me of the stories of Flannery O'Connor. It felt very life-affirming to laugh at minor oddities and witticisms in the midst of Anton Chigurh's wanton destruction. The Road, whose minimalist dialogue consists largely of exchanges of the word "okay," offers no such reprieve. I don't think I laughed once during the entire novel, though a wistful smile passed across my lips during occasional oases of piercing beauty. Like any good story about castaways shipwrecked on a forbidding island, The Road makes one ashamed of the material excesses of modern society. The barren wind of Ecclesiastes howls across the ruined land, making a mockery of once-flashy billboards advertising products no longer in existence. Even moments that acknowledge the sweetness of such items are streaked with bitterness because both realize that any good thing they encounter is likely to be the last of its kind. The question arises as to whether it might be better for the boy never to sample such treasures of a bygone era, as it could merely lead to fruitless yearning for a world irrevocably lost. But existing as a vagabond in constant fear of starvation and attack has caused the man to live for the moment as much as possible, and to allow his son every exquisite experience he can.

The Road is a story of a father and son with the strongest bond imaginable. The two sustain each other completely, which makes it all the more excruciating when it becomes clear that the man struggles at every moment with a promise he made to the boy's mother, a vow inversely reminiscent of Abraham agreeing to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis. While that was a wrenching demonstration of faith, the single bullet remaining for the man's son is the ultimate indication of despair. The boy knows why it is there; indeed, whenever his father leaves him standing guard, the child reluctantly retains the gun, having been instructed to pull the trigger himself should marauders overtake him. The man has every expectation that the protection, in the form of a quick death, from the ravages of those who have managed to survive through brutality and cannibalism will be the last gift he imparts, a final violent expression of love to be followed by his own tormented demise.

And yet...The Road is the story of a journey. So while his may be, as Gandalf would say, "a fool's hope," the man presses his son onward with vague promises of a coastal haven unspoiled by the desecration that has surrounded the lad for the whole of his young life. I was startled when I realized that this epic trek through a ruined world toward some fabled destination reminded me of The Land Before Time, the haunting 1988 Don Bluth film whose magnificence remains undiminished despite excessive merchandising and an increasingly embarrassing line of direct-to-video sequels. Littlefoot and the man face many of the same challenges; both bereaved and made to soldier on in a life suddenly so unfamiliar, they find solace in caring for others, and this is what keeps them going when it seems that all of their efforts could be for naught. While Littlefoot attracts a small band of fellow apparent orphans, the man's entire focus is on his son's well-being, to the exclusion of all others. His practical insistence that they stick to self-preservation is often at odds with the boy's surprising altruism. Here is a child who has been raised in a world where survival of the fittest seems the only order of the day, and yet he consistently demonstrates empathy for other stragglers they encounter. While he is terrified of "the bad guys," what frightens him most of all is the thought of his father and him resorting to "bad guy" behavior in their desperation to endure. His keen sense that, to quote the film version of Sam Gamgee, "there's some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for" anchors the book in a hope that feels far more substantial than the man's ephemeral utopian visions. In a future in which the body is in constant peril, this child's chief concern is his soul.

Therefore, The Road left me feeling far less depressed than I expected. In fact, despite the utter desolation of the landscape McCarthy paints with his stark prose, I daresay I was uplifted. I look forward to comparing notes with Art and Erica after the film finally makes it to the big screen, supposedly in October, and retracing Mortensen's footsteps at Presque Isle once I see exactly where it is that he and his young co-star walked. In the meantime, I offer the same recommendation that was given to me. Prepare yourself for a searing experience, but don't let that stop you from exploring The Road in all its elegiac majesty.

Hanks Brings the Magic in The Polar Express, But It's Not Enough

It seems impossible to me that with all of the Christmas books I've read, I haven't ever cracked open the cover of one of the all-time classics, The Polar Express, not even when the arrival of the movie in 2004 made Chris Van Allsburg's acclaimed picture book one of the hottest sellers of the winter in the bookstore where I worked. I was all pumped up to read the book and see the movie, and somehow I did neither. But last week, I finally caught the movie. Now I feel the need to read the book even more than before, simply because I didn't quite get the film. Maybe it can explain a few things...

Like the name of the protagonist. Was this poor kid originally without a name, or was that a strange change made for the purpose of the movie? I find it very distracting not to know the name of the main character, or to be clear on just how he was selected to make this journey. Initially, I thought that this ride was especially for children who find themselves in serious doubt as to Santa's existence, but that doesn't seem to be the case with the young girl our hero befriends on the ride, nor with the thoroughly irritating know-it-all who thinks he has all the answers about the mysteries of the North Pole. The key to their invitation seems to be in the golden train tickets, which spell out a different word for each child at the end of their trip, giving them brief, compelling advice. But why was such a small selection of children chosen? And is every ride on the Polar Express this hazardous?

One of the decorations that always goes out this time of year is a little toy train we bought from Burger King when Anastasia hit theaters. I recalled that train as I watched the film, thinking of its fiery destruction in one of the movie's many intense scenes. The Polar Express takes its passengers on a voyage that is just as harrowing, with the dangers unrelenting. The protagonist and his new friends deal with one life-threatening obstacle after another.

Just one gratuitously narrow scrape involves the boy running outside after his new female friend to give her the ticket she forgot, resulting in him losing the ticket and nearly tumbling off the train. I like this sequence, though, if only because the flight of the wind-whipped ticket is like Forrest Gump's feather sequence on steroids. It gets snapped at by wolves, regurgitated by eagles, rolled into a giant snowball. It takes a swift, high-octane journey fraught with peril, somehow landing intact almost right where the girl left it - only for the boy to go trotting off after her once more, nearly losing the ticket again.

I doubt it's an accident that the scene reminds me so strongly of Forrest Gump. The movies share a director (Robert Zemeckis), a composer (Alan Silvestri) and a star (Tom Hanks). It's a regular Forrest reunion. But the result of their collaborative efforts is not quite so flawless this time. In an attempt to duplicate the mystical quality of Van Allsburg's illustrations for the big screen, Zemeckis relied on motion capture technology, which was used to bring Gollum to such vibrant life in Lord of the Rings. Each of the characters has its roots in the performance of an actor, while another actor usually provided the voice. The result is visually arresting, but I wouldn't go so far to say it's pleasing. "Spooky" would be a more accurate adjective.

Hanks practically carries the movie by himself, having acted for six different characters and voiced five. The most prominent and iconic of these, and my favorite character, is the conductor of the train, a man with a bristly mustache, a gruff accent, a twinkle in his eye and a remarkable resemblance to Hanks. He comes across as stern, intimidating... almost sadistic at times. But all of it is done with a wink, and evidently this conductor just likes to make the kids in his charge sweat a little. When it comes down to it, he's on their side. The conductor is a living, breathing, totally convincing character, and his train is a glorious piece of machinery. Nona Gaye puts in a touching performance as the protagonist's magnanimous new friend, and the late Michael Jeter, playing bumbling engineers Smokey and Steamer, has the opportunity to let his comedic gifts shine in this capper to a too-short career. Most of the other characters, however, look off-kilter. It's hard to say just how, but they're pale, ghostly figures, and for all the expense and effort that went into the project, most of them don't look any more realistic than the humans in Toy Story.

After all the hype surrounding the movie, I expected pure magic. What I ended up with was two hours spent mostly grimacing at the television, waiting to be drawn into the enchantment. I tip my hat to Hanks and those responsible for animating the conductor; the film is worth watching just for him, and for the shivery end-credits ballad penned by Silvestri and Glen Ballard and sung by the enormously talented Josh Groban. On the whole, though, The Polar Express never quite seems to get on track.

Thomas the Really Useful Engine to the Rescue!

When he was little, my brother Nathan adored Thomas the Tank Engine, and the two of us used to watch his show on PBS often, getting a big kick out of Ringo Starr's narration and laughing at all the "cross" engines with their round, pouty faces. When a show is set in a place called "Shining Time Station," you know that no trouble is going to last for very long, but it was always fun to see how Thomas and his friends handled their unique setbacks.

In Rev. W. Awdry's Thomas' Christmas Delivery, illustrated by Tommy Stubbs, Thomas has a number of important stops to make before he can get home to the station for the traditional stocking hanging and a nice Christmas Eve snooze before awaking to a glorious gift from Father Christmas. Because he is determined to be a "Really Useful Engine," Thomas puts aside thoughts of Christmas morning, focusing instead on getting food to Community Hall, care packages to children at boarding school and gifts to patients at a children's hospital.

Along each leg of the journey, the weather gets snowier, so that by the time he reaches the hospital he's in the middle of a full-blown blizzard. What's more, Sir Topham Hat asks him to make yet another special delivery before he heads home. Will Thomas manage to arrive home in time to hang his stocking?

Because Thomas, as a train, is devoid of limbs, any story about him making deliveries must of necessity be a tale of cooperation. Thomas has the first half of the job, but he can only succeed in his mission if the people where he stops are willing to unload the boxes he's carrying. Thus, Thomas' Christmas Eve travels really are a community effort.

The prose is very simple, with the repetition of Thomas' "Really Useful Engine" mantra reminiscent of "I think I can" in The Little Engine That Could. The colorful illustrations are fun, especially the sparkly cover, and there's a great giggly moment when we learn just what it is Thomas so desperately wants for Christmas.

Nathan hasn't been obsessed with Thomas for quite some time, but I know from the number of kids who peruse the train calendars at the kiosk where I work that enthusiasm for locomotives is still quite common among youngsters, especially boys. If there's a little train lover in your life, give the gift of a Really Useful Engine this Christmas.

Can Mr. Putter Train Tabby to Stow Away Where She's Unwelcome?

When I was little, my family used to go for a drive to a relatively nearby town, where we would catch a train that would take us on a scenic ride through the countryside. I think we spent more time in the car than on the train, but we always looked forward to the expedition, on which my brother and I would wear our conductor's hats proudly and gaze out at the passing scenery. Nowadays, when I think of trains I'm more likely to recall the Hogwarts Express before my own childhood adventures, but in either case, there is just something inherently exhilarating about riding in a train.

That's what Mr. Putter thinks, too, when his neighbor Mrs. Teaberry proposes a four-hour train ride in Mr. Putter and Tabby Take the Train, written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Arthur Howard. Mr. Putter may be a rather old man now, but he remembers his boyhood and the joy he felt when he accompanied his parents on train rides.

Howard shows us one idyllic scene in a flashback illustration; we see the young Mr. Putter as a freckle-faced redhead wearing glasses and sitting next to his tattered teddy bear, while his father dozes and his mother, looking elegant with her pronounced fingernails, eyelashes and golden hair in a bun, begins reading the second chapter of Tom Sawyer. What a relief to the polite Mr. Putter that Mrs. Teaberry has proposed an idea that actually suits him, unlike some of her previous schemes, which he has often found outlandish and uncomfortable.

The book is divided into three sections: An Idea, Another Idea and Taking the Train. Between the first two sections, Rylant employs a technique that she often uses throughout the easy-reader series. She ends An Idea with a definitive statement and starts Another Idea with a complete contradiction of that statement. The effect is very funny, especially when amplified by the horrified expression on the usually placid Mrs. Teaberry's face.

I like the way this particular book emphasizes the fact that not only are Mr. Putter and Mrs. Teaberry friends, his cat Tabby and her dog Zeke are friends as well. While the humans are chatting with one another on the phone, the pets go to their windows and greet each other, and throughout the book they are often within inches of each other but never seem in danger of snarling or hissing.

I've noticed that in Rylant's world - or at least in the worlds of Mr. Putter and Tabby and Henry and Mudge - pets have a free rein to do pretty much anything they want. They can go to stores and zoos and amusement parks. They can explore farms and hotels and beaches. They generally have free access to any place a human can go. So I was a bit surprised that in this book, cats and dogs are not allowed on trains. Perhaps the glance at Tom Sawyer near the beginning is a bit of foreshadowing, because Mr. Putter turns mighty mischievous when faced with such a restriction, and Mrs. Teaberry gladly follows suit. Interestingly, when they approach the ticket lady a second time and she grants them passage on the train, her eyes are closed and a smile is on her face, as if to say, "Okay, have things your way, but I don't want to know about it."

Mr. Putter and Tabby Take the Train is another charming installment in this series that shows again and again that fun and adventure can come at any age. Take a relaxing ride through the countryside with Mr. Putter and Mrs. Teaberry... and perhaps a stowaway or two!