Shortcut: An Award-Winning Suspenseful Picture Book About Trains and Family for Children (Ages 4-8)

This is a great book that holds the students interest. The children get very excited and make predictions as to what is next as I read.

This is the best example of building tension in a picture book that I've ever seen! The words are sparse but the story is complete. And the whoo-whoos and klakity-klaks had the kids reading along right away. They intuitively knew from the art how loud a whoo should be. Amazing!

All of my children have loved this book, so much so I've had to buy several replacement copies. Some people criticize it for teaching a bed lesson (glorifying doing something dangerous and keeping secrets from adults), but what it does is perfectly capture a child's perspective of doing something wrong (and dangerous) and learning a lesson independent of adult input. In case you are wondering (spoiler alert), the kids take a short cut on train tracks and almost get hit by a train. Crews is at his best in this one with succinct sentences that are wonderful to read out loud, lots of action, and beautiful illustrations.

I used this book for a Children's Literature class in college. I practiced my read-aloud with my children. I brought in all of f the sound effects. Recently, my daughter asked me if I would get the book and read it to her children🥰

This is a lovely picture book with simple text. We used it as a mentor text to teach how to write a small moment story. It has all the elements you would be looking for!

I read this book with my children. Now I want to share with my grandson. Donald Crews is an exceptional illustrator and author.

I read this book to my son when he was a toddler and he loved it so much I had to read it over and over. Of course you have to add the train effects to the story...but here it is 16 years later, and am now reading it to my grandson. He isnt quite a toddler yet, but he enjoys the story as well. Its a good read for any child.

I love to read books with few words with my kindergarten class. This one is great, the words match the feeling.