Trouble for Thomas and Other Stories (Thomas & Friends)

Okay, Ringo Starr is not the best narrator, and the pictures are a bit fuzzy and not all that great having been taken from the TV series video tape and enlarged past what their quality would support; and Thomas (on the cover) does look like his going to `hurl', but little people just don't seem to care and so we give this book and cassette, Four Stars. There are 4 stories in this collection: Trouble for Thomas Thomas Saves the Day Thomas Goes Fishing Terence the Tractor For those of you who can't remember the plot lines I have summarized them below. In `Trouble for Thomas', kind Edward trades jobs with Thomas so that our favorite Steamie is off to end his boredom by pushing freight cars instead of coaches. The cars get the better of him though because he hasn't listened to Edwards advice. (A frequent Thomas problem.) In `Thomas Saves the Day' it is poor James' turn to get into trouble with those troublesome trucks. They force him to go off the line. (Wooden brakes, you know). Thomas saves the day by quickly getting the break-down train to the scene, where fortunately James is embarrassed, but unhurt. At the end of this story, James gets new brakes, and Thomas gets his own branch line and Annie and Clarabel. In `Thomas Goes Fishing', we find out that Thomas loves to stop and watch the river, unfortunately fate and his driver seldom allow him to do so. When he meets the other engines he repeats his dissatisfaction and says, "I want to fish." But they would all say the same thing in reply: "Engines don't go fishing." Trouble comes when Thomas stops at the river station for water and the pump is out of order. His driver and fireman use a bucket to top him off, but unbeknownst to them, they have put fish in Thomas' boiler. Steamie chaos (and a bit of a stink) ensues. In `Terence the Tractor', Thomas gets himself into trouble when he bangs up his much hated snowplow so that he actually can't wear it. And when a heavy snow falls, he gets stuck. Terence comes to the rescue and Thomas finds out that `caterpillar treads' are good things indeed. Four Stars. My son plays this tape over and over and over, all of its faults forgiven.

While the stories in this book may appear wordy or (dare I say it) even dreadful at first, as you read them more and more (and I garuntee you will) they will grow on you as they did on me and my toddler! This collection of stories has a central group of characters, which even the youngest of children can seem to become invovled with. The stories include plot lines that invovle lessons like teamwork, commradery, honesty, modesty and being humble. The stories are fun and have action (which is more then I can say for some of the Thomas books). It's really wonderful to see my two year old acting out "Thomas Goes Fishing" with his toy trains or the day I realized he had "Terence the Tractor" memorized. This book has really reached my child!

My 3-year-old son listened to this cassette repeatedly with a walkman when we took a 4 hour flight. A stress-free flight courtesy of Thomas.

My son loves Thomas the Tank Engine and this book, with the cassette, helps him with his pronunciation of the words that he is having trouble saying. I wish that there were more then 4 books on tape with Thomas.