This little book includes four stories -- "James in a Mess", "Bertie's Chase", "Percy and the Signal" and "Percy Proves a Point". Each story is accompanied by photographs from the video series. My complaint is that the stories are confusing and not well told.

The books consists of the traditional James stories. However, the illustrations are replaced by photographs from the videos. I believe, making the book look darker and less appealing to my three year old. My recommendation--look for an edition with the original illustrations.

Not only does this collection of tales contain the usually wonderful Thomas tales, but it features actual photographs to accompany the stories. These add a realistic touch to the sticky mess James gets in after making fun of another engine, only to have a load of goo land all over him! All the tales (several more follow) follow suit. For example, 'Percy Proves A Point' is a fun illustration of the pleasant surprises that await someone who push themselves just a little harder than they thought they could...and the joy of celebrating those victories with friends.

This board book is fairly simplistic, and not the most interesting of all the Thomas books my children have. Using some of the engines at the station, basic color principles are shown. Bill and Ben are yellow, as are the rails of the bridge. James is red, as are the flowers in the flowerbox where he is stopped, etc. Unfortunately, there is little else to hold a child's interest once they've memorized that color and repeatedly pointed out the matching objects. There is no real text beyond the color written at the bottom of the page. All in all, not a very appealing Thomas book to budding and interested little minds.

My apraxic son (2 years old) loves this book! It is the only way that I can get him to say his color words. He needs the simplicity of the pages, plus the motivation of his love for Thomas. Only covers the colors blue, red, green, orange, and white.

My son loves all the Thomas books and I was thrilled to have found some Thomas' books in spanish. The only thing is that in this particular item there is a word that it's misspelled... "trencito" should be "trenecito"!!!
Hopefully the publishing co. and others involved will review this problem and fix it before putting any more copies out for their customers.

This was my child's first bed-time book. Each page has very few words and simple illustrations. Compared to some of the other Thomas books out there, the illustrations in this book seem to accurately depict the characters - which is a plus. My child loved it and always let us know that she wanted it to be read several times (maybe she figured out she could stay up longer! ). She is now 20 months and it does not hold her interst as it did just a few months ago, but it is a great first book in every way!

Aimed at really young readers, this board book serves best as an introduction to Thomas the Tank and his friends. The stories are extremely short and are told using lacid language and the cartoon illustrations that have become so familiar. Each of the six mini-miniture tales are accompanied by a finger tab so young readers can flip to their favorite. There are a lot of better Thomas books out there, but really young fans of Thomas and those who have never met Thomas and his friends, will enjoy this paltry book the most.

I gave this book two stars because it is a Thomas the Tank Engine book and because the peek-a-boo concept is a hit with toddlers. But the illustrations--good grief! All of the children look like fat white worms. Toddlers don't necessarily need Monet, but the book is not at all visually appealing.

I ate Thomas the Tank ngine, but any junior fans will like this pop-up book.

The morality is Victorian - the censorious and vindictive Fat Controller is an example of middle-class Victorian values. The engines (who do all the work) have to obediently kowtow to this toff. The worst of English class values. Outdated. I used to change the stories when I read these aloud. Thank goodness by the time most kids are independent readers they have grown out of Thomas!