Wave the Flag and Blow the Whistle by Ronda Armitage and Andrew Gordon

Wave the Flag and Blow the Whistle by Ronda Armitage and Andrew Gordon
Buy Wave the Flag and Blow the Whistle by Ronda Armitage and Andrew Gordon at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Ruth Ng
Summary: Lacking in flow, but lots of fun things about train travel to discuss!
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 32	Date: April 2012
Publisher: Egmont Books
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1405253406
Share on:

A little boy and his grandad, and a spotty giraffe toy go out one day for a ride on a train. They're off on a journey to Blueberry Hill. What will they see? What will they do? All the excitement of travelling by train are looked at in this story!

I found this to be a difficult book to review. There's an awful lot to like about it - all of the noises, the sounds of the train or diggers in the fields, the humour through the story and pictures of the little boy's spotty giraffe who keeps getting left behind...But at the same time I felt there was something lacking, and that although it aspired to be something rather like We're Going on a Bear Hunt it never quite manages it.

There are rhythmic phrases, and rhymes, but it doesn't seem to have a specific structure or flow and the patterns change from page to page making it, I felt, rather awkward to read at times. Still, the story itself is a great concept. I love travelling by train with my daughter and it's always exciting to see all the action on the station platform, to watch the world pass by through a train window, and to feel excited and a little bit scared as the train goes into a tunnel!

Whilst on the train the little boy makes friends with a little girl, and his grandad befriends her grandma. There's a rather nice montage of what the four of them get up to once they finally reach Blueberry Hill including the requisite British weather rainy moment that spoils the picnic! All of the illustrations are lovely really, nice hand-drawn sketches and with lots of things to look at and talk about.

I'm sure little fans of train travel will thoroughly enjoy discussing it together. I felt it was something I wouldn't be overly keen to read repeatedly, hence the 'maybe' suggestion for buying it, but certainly borrow it and give it a try to see what you think!

Little travel bugs might also enjoy Big Blue Train by Julia Jarman and Adrian Reynolds and When Titus Took The Train by Anne Cottringer and Sarah McIntyre

Please share on: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

You can read more book reviews or buy Wave the Flag and Blow the Whistle by Ronda Armitage and Andrew Gordon at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Wave the Flag and Blow the Whistle by Ronda Armitage and Andrew Gordon at Amazon.com.

Comments

Like to comment on this review?

Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.