Move Your Caboose -- Picture Book Review Blog

In Caboose by Travis Jonker, inventive opposite prose joins hands with Ruth Chan's artistic choreography to produce a humorous story that makes you want to move.

Characters: Caboose the hippopotamus protagonist, and his classroom cast of animal caricatures (fish, alligator, turtle, giraffe, etc.

Themes: It takes practice and perseverance

Conflict: The page turns are moved forward by a desire to know the answer.

Plot: Caboose tells us about his passion to be first and shows us all the skills he has mastered to ensure he is at the head-of-the-line.

When he takes it too far, Caboose's teacher relinquishes him to the back-of-the-line. This is a problem for Caboose because he has no back-of-the-line skills and he fails at this new position.

Learning about opposites, he realizes he just needs to learn new skills. Caboose practices and practices and eventually becomes a back-of-the-line master but once again he takes it too far.

Can Caboose master yet a third set of skills?

Perspective: First-person, with Caboose as the narrator

Setting: An early education school and playground

Picture Book Reviews

ISBN-13	978-1419765032
Publisher	Abrams Books for Young Readers
Publication Date	February 2025
Page	40
Age	4 to 8

Buy

Book cover for "Caboose" by Travis Jonker and Ruth Chan, featuring a whimsical lineup of animal characters sporting colorful backpacks as they wait in line outside school.