Over the past couple years, many people have gone out of their way to comment to me that Inside A Freight Train is one of their children's favorite books. The children get very excited when they see real cars that look like the ones in their book. The best review I've ever had, however, was from my two youngest children. Each of them discovered the book on their own (at about the age of two) while going through the books on their shelf. I'll never forget the look on my son's face as he proudly brought the book to me, wanting me to read it to him. Of course, he had no idea that I had written and illustrated it. Ever since that day, the train book has been his number one favorite book and he still has no idea that his mother had anything to do with it. (The only problem is that he finds brand new copies sometimes (waiting to be mailed out to someone) and thinks that these are his books,too!) The artwork is very straighforward because I have found that that is what young children prefer. All of the backgrounds are real places. Some of these places are here in central Pennsylvania. I actually climbed down into a tank car at a train junk yard to get pictures of the heating pipes. The lack of variety in composition (cars are all seen from the side) was due to the preference of the editor.

This book is awsome! You will not believe what kind of things it tells you until you get it. It tells you everything from how to get peanut butter out of your hair to how to get a dishwasher smelling fresh again. My mother had the "Mary Ellen's Best of Helpful Hints" book for many years, and I would always call her to find out how to do things from the book, and so I decided that it was time to get myself one. This book is so good! You have to get one!