The Little Red Caboose

Rating

Respect cabooses. Or something.

Meh. Super boring. Really basic storyline told in way more words than it needs. A lot of outdated imagery, with super old cars from the 1950s. Nobody really has steam trains anymore. I'm slightly concerned about the Native Americans in the scenery being depicted in a stereotypical style. It's not very interesting. You could almost blame this for the beginning of Thomas the Tank Engine, with the anthropomorphic train cars. Except Thomas came first.

All the kids wave at the train, except not the caboose because they're bored by then. And I can't blame them. And then the train tries to go up a mountain and fails and starts sliding back down. Apparently the brakes are on the caboose for some reason? And the caboose slams on its brakes and the train doesn't slide down and two engines come behind it and push it up the hill. And it succeeds. And they wouldn't have been able to do it if it wasn't for the caboose. So now everybody waves at the caboose. Yay.

Message

People only like you if you are useful. Or, eventually you'll get thanked for the hard work you do.

Authors
Illustrators
Publication Year
1953
Age Range
2-5
Number of Pages
24
Number of words on a typical page
16