Cars, Trains, Ships & Planes: A Visual Encyclopedia of Every Vehicle

by Clive Gifford

Preparati a un viaggio nell'affascinante mondo dei mezzi di trasporto. Solca le strade in una supercar rosso fuoco, prendi il biglietto per un treno ad alta velocità, prenota una crociera di lusso, entra nella cabina di pilotaggio di un jet supersonico. Con più di 1.000 immagini sorprendenti e tantissime informazioni, un'enciclopedia per viaggiare via terra, aria e acqua in ogni angolo del mondo! Età di da 6 anni.

Genres: Nonfiction, Trains, Childrens, Aeroplanes, Reference, Transport

256 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 2015

About the author

Clive Gifford is a highly experienced journalist and author with over 170 books published and more than 800 features and stories written for adults and children.

Clive is an unusual author who likes to work in both fiction and non-fiction. Perhaps this reflects his unusual life which, so far, has seen him travel to over 70 countries, be held hostage in Colombia, go parachuting, coach several sports and run a computer games company.

He says: "What drives me more than anything else is the desire to communicate, entertain and inform through the written word."

Reviews

[Polly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would be the first to say that I find non-fiction books difficult to engage with. I am absolutely a narrative girl through and through. I chose this book to review as I had initially purchased it as a present for my vehicle mad nephew, but he already had a copy, which at least mean I made a good choice. The book itself is very visually pleasing with a variety of different types of images including more detailed pictures of engines and cross sections that detail how particular vehicles function. The book is perhaps very appealing for children who might not be as keen to chronologically read books, it joyful both to read it in order and to dip in and out depending on your interest. Having worked now with a range of different children, with different reading habits, I could immediately think of some children who this book would be perfect for. Also, when looking at non-fiction text books like these that had a significantly different layout to books written in proses if fantastic for analysing how information can be presented.

[Chung Tsz Chun Rodney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am strongly convinced that this book is very informative. It talks about cars, trains, ships as well as planes in many different aspects, for example: different kinds of vehicles, their functions, purposes, etc. I really learnt a lot from the book, and to be honest, I didn't actually acquired most of the knowledge in the book before I read it. The book really widened my horizons and I think it is very useful to me. Hence, I like reading this book.

[MK · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, you can learn more about the history of vehicles, the background behind how humans invented them, and how vehicles continue to evolve even today.

Humans have always sought faster and more comfortable vehicles.

Humans first relied on animals such as horses and camels for transportation, but later they improved their mechanical technology.

It is thanks to the engineers who came before us that we can freely travel on land, sea, underwater, sky, and even space.

Enjoy hobbies and sports by riding a bicycle, going shopping by car, commuting to work by train, traveling by boat or plane.

Of all the vehicles, only tanks are a waste of time and effort.
People do not need tanks to be happy.

[Mrs Tobins Class · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cars, trains, ships and planes is an awesome book with facts about awesome vehicles. From Japan to Australia to the Netherlands, back to BC and still in prototype. I would easily rate this book for all ages, little kids to look at the pictures, school kids to learn new facts and adults to read for fun and even they might learn new facts.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Molta informació, molta, sobre mitjans de comunicació. Però molta…

[Anne M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book with lots of facts & pictures! My child has been enjoying this book since he was 3!

[PottWab Regional Library]

SM

[Bailey Pofahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: This nonfiction book would be placed under the informational nonfiction genre. This book provides students with information on not only trains, which connects to the fiction "twin text," but it also provides information on other types of transportation that they might be interested in as well.

Target Audience: The target audience for this book would likely be students in the intermediate grades (3-6). I would choose this grade level because of the amount of text in the book. The information presented in the book is not difficult to understand, however there is a lot of text on each page. If I gave this book to younger students, such as PK-3rd graders, I would be concerned that they would get overwhelmed by the amount of information and lose interest.

I paired this nonfiction book with the picture book "How to train a train" by Jason Carter Eaton. This picture book caught my attention because it is a story of a young boy explaining how trains work. He does so by teaching readers how to ride a train in silly ways, as though the train is an animal they are trying to ride. I thought these two books would go well together in a unit on transportation. If teaching this unit, I would read the fiction story aloud to the students as a group. I would then be able to encourage students to think of their favorite type of transportation and use the nonfiction books, such as "Cars, Trains, Ships, and Planes" to write a story explaining how to ride it. This would be a unique way for students to be creative and learn about different types of transportation at the same time.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really cool book that shows the history and current use of several modes of transportation (more than what is listed in the title).

Fun for boys (and girls or tomboys) of all ages!

This book was published by DK, in cooperation with Smithsonian.

Excellent!

[Joan Arbogast · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye candy or any kids who loves vehicles. What makes this volume better than most is that it also includes action-shots of awesome vehicles around the world with great captions.