Van Allsburg, Chris. The Polar Express. Boston, M.A.: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. The 1986 Caldecott award winning “The Polar Express” is a faith inspiring book that tells a fantastical story of a boy’s trip on a train that picks up children on Christmas Eve, and takes them to the North Pole to meet Santa. On this Christmas Eve, Santa chooses this boy to receive the first gift of Christmas, in which the boy modestly asks and receives a silver bell from Santa’s sleigh; however on the way home he loses the bell. To his surprise on Christmas day after opening all his other gifts, the boy finds the bell neatly wrapped under the tree and when he rings it, his parents cannot hear it, only him, his sister and those who believe can hear its beautiful sound, believing and having faith is the resounding theme to this story.
This story is told from the first person point of view of the boy. The setting starts out at the boy’s house, and then goes to being in the train to outside of the train following it while it travels to its next setting, at the North Pole. The big almost two page sized pictures that just seem to live and breathe in this book have an amazing atmosphere, are flooded with detail and textures, and create an imagery that gives this book a truly epic and majestic feel to it. This book can easily be fuel for dreams for those around the intended ages 4 to 8, but the story is truly ageless.
1 comment:
http://a1259.g.akamai.net/f/1259/5586/5d/images.art.com/images/-/Polar-Express---Christmas-Tree--C10221483.jpeg
Of course, nothing will ever replace the picture book however the movie that came out in 2004 was done very well. The combination of animation and expansion on the story made the movie a hit in the box office, along with the soothing voice of tom hanks as the conductor. It has been a family tradition to read the book every christmas eve for as far back as I can remember, but this movie placed a visual in the spaces between the pages of the original book
Post a Comment