"Whenever I can, I substitute picture for word." -VLB
Written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton, Choo Choo was her first published children's book (an earlier work, Jonnifer Lint, did not get accepted). Quite an amazing lady actually. A Massachusetts native, father was first dean of MIT, on the bleeding edge of children's book illustrating. Read more here. The premise for this story came from watching the trains at Rockport (MA) station with her son, Aris. Our wee boy is mad on trains and loves this, especially as the train runs away and goes too fast in his estimation...
Her better known works may be The Little House or Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, but the dark graphics of Choo Choo definitely give an illicit thrill to the sub5 set...