With six TURNABLE wheels!

Number Train

“ONE cheerful cheetah, racing down the track.
TWO hungry hippos, munching on a snack.”

All aboard the Number Train!
A spectacular lift-the-flap counting book that’s also an incredible fold-out train.

“The highly inventive format, combined with playful rhyming text, counting elements and joyful illustrations make this a truly fun and original early learning book for pre-schoolers.”
BOOKTRUST

“A delightful, interactive board book that is sure to charm little ones with bright colors, fun flaps to lift, and a great train concept.”
★★★★★
YA AND KIDS BOOKS CENTRAL

UK Hardcover: ISBN: 978-1839946400

US Hardcover: ISBN: 979-8887770611

Trailer

See Inside

Author's Note

The idea of Number Train was originally suggested to me in 2017 by author-editor Camilla Reid who was then my editor at Nosy Crow. Alphabet Street, my first novelty book with Nosy Crow and Ingela P Arrhenius, had yet to be published, but initial feedback was enthusiastic, so Camila wrote in an email, “I am starting, cautiously, to think about a follow-up. Number Train? Might that work?” I thought it would work very well and subsequently sent Camilla a rhyming counting book text for a concertina, lift-the-flap format similar to Alphabet Street.

After some consideration, Nosy Crow decided we would do another street book – Christmas Street – as the follow-up. However, I felt Number Train had legs (or wheels!) and a few years later, I returned to it to see if I could think of a way to improve it. One of the things that made the two concertina street books I’d done with Nosy Crow so appealing was the big panorama illustrations Ingela created for the reverse sides. This idea must have come from Ingela or someone at Nosy Crow as I’d left the reverse side of my original Alphabet Street prototype blank.

I decided that the reverse side of Number Train would give readers another look at the locomotive and carriage interiors that were shown beneath the flaps on the front side. I thought it made sense for the number of animals on the reverse side to be the same as the front – so that there would still be ten animals in the carriage with the big number “10” on the front, nine animals in the “9” carriage and so on. However, I redistributed the animals on the reverse side so that only one of each type of animal could be found in each carriage. A page stuck to the inside back cover encouraged young readers to look through the reverse side of the train, spotting and counting each type of animal in each carriage.

To demonstrate the concept, I made a prototype dummy of the book using photos of real animals. In ordinary circumstances I would have sent this prototype to my agent Caroline Walsh, who would have shown it to potential publishers in person. However, I made the prototype in the summer of 2020, during the first COVID lockdown, when Caroline and most of the publishers she worked with were obliged to avoid meeting other people and work from home. Before lockdown, most publishers would share prospective new projects widely in-house, with people from editorial, design, sales and marketing departments getting together to discuss them. In such meetings a novelty book prototype could be passed around a table, but that was not possible under COVID lockdown restrictions. So Caroline came up with the brilliant Idea that I make a video demonstrating how the prototype worked, which she could send to publishers, who could then email it between their departments. This proved to be such an effective way of sharing a novelty prototype that, post pandemic, I have continued to make demo videos for new novelty projects.

The video I made to demonstrate the prototype version of the book

Although Nosy Crow had turned the book down previously, they were still my first choice of publisher, so we sent the video to Victoria England, who’d taken over from Camilla as my editor there, first. I’m glad to say that the new idea for using the reverse side won them over and this time Nosy Crow accepted the book!

As always, Ingela has done a brilliant job on the book’s illustrations, giving each carriage or wagon a colourful, distinctive design and filling them with amusing and appealing occupants. My favourite is Carriage 8, which contains a band of eight penguins playing musical instruments (as shown in the “See Inside” section above). Here’s how the same carriage looks on the reverse side, where the penguin pianist remains, but the other instruments are played by other animals.

And Nosy Crow made the finished book even more appealing by adding wheels to the front and back cover, which turn as it’s pushed along!

Reviews

“This gorgeous, train shaped, lift the flap, concertina book, has real spinning wheels to push along the floor, adding a whole new, fun dimension to learning to count. There is clever rhyming text and a counting game on the reverse. It really has it all and our judges could see it becoming a learning to count classic!”
BEST PRE-SCHOOLER BOOK 3-5 YEARS
JUNIOR DESIGN AWARDS 2024

“Young readers are in for an exciting ride as they unfold the sturdy pages of this train-shaped book to reveal ten colourful carriages. … children will love lifting the flaps to reveal a new and surprising scene, each one illustrated in a distinctly vibrant and playful style. … The highly inventive format, combined with playful rhyming text, counting elements and joyful illustrations make this a truly fun and original early learning book for pre-schoolers.”
BOOKTRUST

“With six spinning wheels and a brilliant train shape, little ones can drive it along before unfolding the book to reveal 10 carriages. Each numbered carriage has a flap to lift with characters and scenes to discover behind them! On the reverse there’s a counting challenge to see if you can spot all the animals in the pictures. With fabulous, friendly illustrations by Ingela P Arrhenius and fun, rhyming text from Jonathan Emmett it’s colourful, entertaining and educational – the perfect combination!”
TEENY READERS

This is a such a fun concept and takes it to another level with a board book that folds out into a long train. The flaps on each page add to the interactive nature of the book, as do the flip side for a seek-and-find/counting task. The animals are colorful and doing plenty of entertaining things all along the train, and the rhyming text makes this roll off the tongue and a delight for the ears. … For train and animal lovers, this is sure to be a hit! … NUMBER TRAIN is a delightful, interactive board book that is sure to charm little ones with bright colors, fun flaps to lift, and a great train concept.
★★★★★
Olivia Farr, YA AND KIDS BOOKS CENTRAL