THERE'S A TRAIN OUT FOR DREAMLAND

The words to a Nat King Cole song from the 1940s serve as the text for this bedtime story featuring the roly-poly animals and charming children in soft-focus watercolors that are the signature look of Jane Dyer’s illustrations. For this effort, her daughter Brooke is the co-illustrator. As the story begins, a big blue train pulls in with bells ringing and whistle blowing. The train transports a smiling, singing crowd of cute children to Dreamland, riding on peppermint-striped rails to a station that serves up ice cream and then around a candy-coated mountain and up into the sky. The story concludes with a blond toddler, also shown on the front cover, climbing into bed with the magical train floating through the sky outside the window. The words from the song are not well-known today, but they function adequately as a structure for this wispy, dreamy interpretation. The pleasant illustrations have a slightly washed-out look, and everything seems a bit hazy and subdued, but that might be just right to coax a little one into dreamland. (Picture book. 2-5)