Locomotive

The background of Locomotive by Brian Floca can be traced back to 1869. As a picture book, older age people can appreciate its details and history. Brian Floca takes his readers to a cross-country journey with him in Locomotive. According to one of its book reviews, “In a collegial direct address, he invites readers to join a family-mother, daughter and son- on one of the first passenger trips from Omaha to Sacramento after the meeting of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific in May 1869” (Kirkus), Locomotive illustrates the trip in details. Locomotive by Brian Floca is one of the winners of Caldecott Medal Award. Its success can be attributed to its elements of design. Elements of line/shape, colors, value, space, perspectives/point of
According to Charlotte Huck’s Children’s Literature, line can convey meaning (p.67). Different lines can represent various meanings as well as shape. Huck introduces the shape of picture books by stating that “a line that encloses space creates shape, and this elements is equally evocative of meaning” (Huck, p. 67). Lines and shapes merge together well in the picture book Locomotive. The locomotive is depicted in straight lines and shapes with sharp corners so that it appears to readers its metallic sense, while human is depicted in mellow and full shapes. Those contrary comparisons make the images more
According to Huck’s, “in good picturebooks, no single element of art exists apart from the others” (Huck, p. 70), every single elements should be mixed together well so that the picture book can be considered a good book. On the one third of the Locomotive, when the conductor starts to check the tickets in the locomotive, he speaks aloud “tickets”. The text “tickets ” is written in a bubble dialog box conspicuously with different format, so that it is easy for readers to know that the narrator has spoken the word “tickets”. Readers can see the narrator and conductor’s lines are merged together well in