Clickety Clack

My 2 year-old loves this book. It flows so nicely that I often sing the story to her, with her bouncing along to the "beat." Within no time, she had the book memorized. Its a fun story and the illustrations are lively and colorful.

We stumbled upon this book at the California Train Museum in Sacramento about 5 months ago and have been completely entralled with this masterpiece ever since. Not only are the illustrations vibrant and entertaining, the text offers a very special attribute: the rhyme actually has a train rhythm. Pulling out of the station the train clicks along at a slow pace, "The little black train goes down the track. Clickety clack, clickety clack." As the text tells who is on the train (yaks, acrobats, ducks, elephants...) and what they are doing (talking, singing, quacking, stomping...) it builds to a frantic speed until "two mice light fireworks" and give Driver Zach a "headache attack." At that point the "rhythm" of the "train" begins to slow as the passengers calm down and behave themselves and the train settles into an even-paced canter and leaves Driver Zach with a smile on his face. My then pre-2 year old had this book memorized within the first week and still asks for it daily. Another thing we found fun is to read it while whispering -- the rhythm is accentuated when you whisper and my son thinks it is especially funny. I cannot give this book more than 5 stars, unfortunately, but think that one that includes great artwork, catchy rhyming text, and incorporates a train rhythm to boot should be at the top of any train and/or rhythm and rhyme lover's book list.

As a teacher of 2 year olds, I can strongly recommend this book! This was by far their favorite book. They started reciting the "Clickety, Clack" line, and soon had the entire book memorized. My own 2 year old would recite the book at the grocery store. It is so catchy and a lot of fun!

My little girl absolutely loves this book. No matter what else may be going on, when asked if she'd like to read a story, she will jump up and start yelling for "Clickety Clack". She love this story so much and the dialog is so easy to understand that she has the book memorized, pretty much word for word. This is a great book, the words work so well with one another and the variety of characters so diverse, there are yacks, ducks, acrobats and mice all of whom manage to drive driver Zack pretty crazy!

My daughter loves this book. I read it to her every night, and at least three times a day. The sound of the "clickety clack," and the other rhyming schemes work very well.