Snakes on a Train

by Kathryn Dennis

An adorable picture book full of sibilant sounds and other word play, Snakes on a Train is as fun for parents as it is for kids, and sure to be a read-aloud hit.

The conductor takes the tickets
as the snakes start crawling on.
The tracks are checked,
the whistle blows. It's time to move along.
Hissssssssssss goes the sound of the train.

Genres: Picture Books, Storytime, Animals, Transport, Trains, Childrens, Fiction

32 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Stace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snakes on a Train is a children’s picture book about – yes you have guessed it, snakes that are on a train. The snakes are enjoying a good day out on the train and it is full of them.

The book is colourful, rhymes, and has repeated sentences that will help new readers. It is certainly entertaining and I know that the characters are snakes but there is no connection with them, they are just a pit of snakes having a day on a train. They lack expressions, etc. Plus the book felt a little short.

Overall, the book is different and interesting. It contains short sentences and is the perfect book for children learning to read, however, it is not really my cup of tea, but I hope that the young readers will love it.

[Bookread2day · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fiction story is about fictional colourful snakes that take a train ride. I loved how the writing is very large for children to be able to read this book. All children will love these bright colourful illustrations. There’s a little part of education about snakes set within this lovely book.
I would like to thank Walker for sending me this great children’s book to read and review
My review is on my website www.bookread2day.wordpress.com

[Lauren Stoolfire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snakes on trains - who can resist?

[Raven Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would make a great lap size board book

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a stellar storytime pick. The toddler crowd loves snakes and animal noises. The toddler crowd also loves trains. Together with the high-impact illustrations and simple concrete colors and silhouettes, we loved hissing along to snakes and the sound of the train.

A+ for the brakesnake alone. BRAKESNAKE!

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

There may not be a whole lot to this story, but it sure is fun! Berry and I had fun searching the illustrations for the pig (you'll see what I mean) and she wanted it read over and over again (the sign of a liked book in our house)!

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

SSSimple SSStory with enchanting SSSilliness and SSSuper SSS's.

I loved the bright simple illustrations against the white background. Such fun for a Preschool/kindergarten story hour.

[Kaethe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my 365 Kids Book challenge. You can see all the books on their own shelf.

This was terribly disappointing because I was hoping for some sort of riff on Snakes on a Plane. Because Samuel L. Jackson and funny kid’s books go great together (remember his star turn as the reader of Go the F**k to Sleep?) But this mistake was my own and nothing the author, publisher, or library perpetrated against me.

Really young kids will like the brightly colored art and the rhythmic text. Adults will probably not find it wicked funny, what with the lack of parody and profanity, but it is cute. Seriously though, wouldn’t a child-safe parody of the film be a hoot to read aloud?

Library copy

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thisssss isss a fantasssstic book!

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like the illustrations. Bright colors, defined shapes.
What is with the pig though?

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book of snakes taking a train ride - and one pig. The brakes snake is adorable! This would make a fun story time book. Have the kids do the hissing sound!

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read at A Day Out With Thomas outreach event - 9/15/2019

[Serenity · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I received a free review copy of this book from the publisher through my district library services*

[Cindy Mitchell *Kiss the Book* · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snakes on a Train by Kathryn Dennis. PICTURE BOOK Feiwel and Friends, 2019. $18. 9781250304407

BUYING ADVISORY: PRE-K; EL (K-3) – ADVISABLE

AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH

Adorable snakes get on a train. The train goes through tunnels and around on the track. At one point the train must stop for a problem on the tracks (a pig laying on the track). Eventually the train ride ends and the snakes go home so they can burrow in their dens and everyone goes to sleep for the night.

The illustrations are really what makes this book fun. The snakes are bright primary colored snakes who have big eyes. The text includes the hiss that both the snakes and the sound of the train make. For kids who like trains and/or snakes this will draw their attention. Adorable.

Reviewer, C. Peterson
https://kissthebookjr.blogspot.com/20...

[Alex Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm assuming this book was conceived as a "Snakes on a Plane" pun but it's just a nice, friendly, light-hearted book about snakes riding on a train. What's the point of the pun? I understand "train" rhymes with "plane," but why? Puns should have a reason. Anyways, it's really good and I wish it was a board book.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book (CHOO CHOO) trains (CHOO CHOO) trains. They go around town picking people up from the station, oh no, over the yellow line you must not go! But the snakes go on the train and the person on the side gives the signal when to stop and when to go (CHOO CHOO!)

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple and easy to follow story, with bold, colorful illustrations. Loved this book.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super excellent bedtime book that the toddler kept coming back to and really enjoyed! Lots of chances for interaction, would work well at storytime too!

[kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

surprisingly solid

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice book for those interested in train or snakes or a rhyming book. This book would work well for toddlers, with its simple sentence structure.

Beautiful illustrations with great colors.

[TorriBorri27 · Rating 5 out of 5]

So I grabbed this book at the library because I thought the title was funny but my toddler had looked it over and asked to a great many times since. Cute pictures and funny story.

[Roxana Rathbun · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was bracing myself for a moment of horror and fright since I have seen the film "snakes on a plane" but I was pleasantly surprised to find the snakes amicable and delightful.

[Erin Kinney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy reader, fun and colorful

[Cat Strawberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a fun and simple story with some brilliant illustrations and repetition. Snakes have their tickets and are boarding a train but what will happen when the train starts to move and then an emergency happens at the back? ‘Snakes on a Train’ is a little smaller than A4ish in size and the paperback is filled with glossy pages of some illustrations and text.

I love the simplicity of the story in this book and the play on words in the title for this book! The first lines of the story are ‘The conductor takes the tickets as the snakes all slither on. The tracks are checked. The whistle blows. It’s time to move along.’ The whole book follows this rhyming pattern and I especially love how this is done showing so many things happening on one train journey. The train goes over many tracks, a bridge and someone even falls out of the back, and each page is accompanied with some brilliant illustrations which I find myself really like even though they are so simple!

The illustrations are quite simple, with everything happening on a white background and the train, tracks and snakes being all colourful. I have to say that I really like the way the snakes look! I couldn’t help but think of them as slightly more like worms, but they look so cute and I love the image of the train carriages carrying lots of passengers who are all doing different things. Without any arms the snakes look funny holding their tickets in their mouths and the various other poses they are in, and I love the one non-snake passenger who you can spot in a few of the pictures.

The rhymes are good in this book, with moments in between where the trains makes noises that end with ‘ssssss’. And although they are good, a few of them are shorter than others which did feel a big jarring when I read this aloud the first time. However overall it is a really great book, and one I’m sure many will enjoy looking at and spotting all the things the snakes end up doing. The ending is good and I like how the end of the day turns out, it’s such a different looking book with the illustration style, but I really like it and hope I’ll see more fun books like this from the author in future. 🙂
-Thanks to Walker Books for a free copy.

[Becs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can see some obvious selling points for this book:

1. Trains AND snakes. Big win for little kids.
2. Colourful illustrations, and some really quite creative.
3. Lyrical narrative obviously intended to feel like a lullaby.

But there was a huge pitfall which detracted from that for me:

1. Really basic plot and storytelling which isn't especially fun.

Whilst the pros clearly outweigh the cons there, that one issue detracts from the fun so much and made it difficult for small readers to stay engaged. Not bad, just didn't really work.

ARC provided from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

[McKenzie Richardson · Rating 2 out of 5]

For more reviews, check out my blog: Craft-Cycle

Let's be real, I mostly checked this out because of the Snakes on a Plane reference. I also work with a little train-lover so there's that.

Overall, this one was okay. The rhymes started off soothing, but were pretty bumpy and not very uniform by the end, which was a little disappointing.

I did like the simple illustrations. The contrasts in color were interesting to look at. But the story just wasn't there.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

I did not expect to like this as much as I did. Snakes on a train?! What the what? Yet I found myself giggling throughout this whole book! The rhyming was bumpy; that should have been an automatic no for me, and yet! Maybe it was the adorable graphic illustrations? Maybe it was the funny bits (the upside-down piggy!) The snake brakeman! I don't know, but I liked it, and want to try it in storytime to see how it goes.

[Smoot M.L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a cute story. What small young child does not like trains and colorful snakes. Pictures are simple easy to relate to the words describing the scene. Vocabulary covered will introduce child to words used in relation to trains. Ex. conductor, tickets, tracks, whistle, gears that grind, station, switcher, signal flag, tunnel and of course the sound the train makes Hisssssss! I rode on the Bernina Express and this book had everything that I experienced on that train.

[Adrienne]

I simply do not know how to rate this one, but I can tell you that dropping the title into conversation is fun.

You: Come on. We have to go home and read Snakes on a Train.

Random person wherever you are: Snakes on a train? What about the plane? Did the snakes get off the plane and onto a train?

So, that's fun.

Lots of practice with the letter S, which is useful.

[Sarah Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

My daughter loves trains and although I only picked this one up because of Snakes on a Plane (Samuel L. Jackson said yes to that screenplay from the title alone, I picked this up because of the crazy title). My daughter wasn't paying attention from the begining, until the snakes hissed and the train made noises, those parts captured her attention and she started to sit still for the story time. It's cute and I may check it out from the library again.