Time Train by Paul Fleischman

Specifics
Time Train, by Paul Fleischman, Illustrated by Claire West
Published by Harper Collins Publishers, 1991

Target Audience
Lexile level AD490L
The book shows that it is for Kindergarten to fourth grade, in our mentor text study, we targeted this text to third grade for a read aloud.

Summary
This book is about a class of children that are going on a class field trip. They leave New York, headed for the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. One of the students tells the ticket seller in New York where they are headed, and the ticket seller tells them that they want a special train, called the Rocky Mountain Unlimited. This train takes them back in actual time so that they can study the dinosaurs in their natural habitat. The train appears a few days later to take them back to New York.

Evaluation
This book is fairly simply written, so younger readers would be able to follow the story. It is never explicitly said that the class goes back in time, rather it is shown in the illustrations. This story is not meant to be believable, since we can't actually go back in time to study the dinosaurs. You see the teacher in the illustrations kind of freaking out about going back in time. When they get to prehistoric times, the teacher is hiding between her suitcases, which the dinosaurs start to steal in the next illustration, and she runs through the water for the train when it comes back to pick them up. This would be a good introduction to learning about dinosaurs and how the environment of the Earth has changed since the time of the dinosaurs. Having the students look at some of the illustrations as the train is going back in time and identifying what elements show that they are going through time would be a good activity for older students.

Lesson
The lesson for this book would go along with a field trip to a dinosaur museum. This book would be read the day before, and the instructor would have a list of dinosaurs with exhibits at the museum. Each student would pick a dinosaur to become an "expert" on. After the museum trip, the students would write a short essay on the dinosaur they picked and a few students could present their dinosaur to the class. The literary element of allusion could be discussed, since the text simply alludes to the fact that they are going back in time.