  | Polar Express Author: Van Allsburg, Chris | |
| Price: $25.38 | ||
Summary:
A magical train ride on Christmas Eve takes a boy to the North Pole to receive a special gift from Santa Claus.
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| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: LG Reading Level: 3.80 Points: .5 Quiz: 5240 | Reading Counts Information: Interest Level: K-2 Reading Level: 4.90 Points: 2.0 Quiz: 09245 | |
Awards:
Caldecott Medal, 1986
Common Core Standards
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → Caldecott Medal
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Craft & Structure
Grade K → Reading → RL Literature → K.RL Integration of Knowledge & Ideas
Grade 1 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 1.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade 1 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 1.RL Range of Reading & Level of Text Complexity
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 2.RL Key Ideas & Details
Grade 2 → Reading → RL Reading Literature → 2.RL Range of Reading & Level of Text Complexity
Grade 2 → Reading → CCR College & Career Readiness Anchor Standards fo
Reviews:
School Library Journal (+)
Booklist (+)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
The Hornbook (+)
Full Text Reviews:
School Library Journal - 10/01/1985 Gr 1-3 Given a talented and aggressive imagination, even the challenge of as cliché-worn a subject as Santa Claus can be met effectively. Van Allsburg's Polar Express is an old-fashioned steam train that takes children to the North Pole on Christmas Eve to meet the red-suited gentleman and to see him off on his annual sleigh ride. This is a personal retelling of the adult storyteller's adventures as a youngster on that train. The telling is straight, thoughtfully clean-cut and all the more mysterious for its naive directness; the message is only a bit less direct: belief keeps us young at heart. The full-page images are theatrically lit. Colors are muted, edges of forms are fuzzy, scenes are set sparsely, leaving the details to the imagination. The light comes only from windows of buildings and the train or from a moon that's never depicted. Shadows create darkling spaces and model the naturalistic figures of children, wolves, trees, old-fashioned furniture and buildings. Santa Claus and his reindeer seem like so many of the icons bought by parents to decorate yards and rooftops: static, posed with stereotypic gestures. These are scenes from a memory of long ago, a dreamy reconstruction of a symbolic experience, a pleasant remembrance rebuilt to fulfill a current wish: if only you believe, you too will hear the ringing of the silver bell that Santa gave him and taste rich hot chocolate in your ride through the wolf-infested forests of reality. Van Allsburg's express train is one in which many of us wish to believe. Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus - Copyright 1985 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.
