On the Blue Comet (review)

Things are looking pretty bleak for eleven-year-old Oscar Ogilvie. The Great Depression has put the squeeze on his father, a farm-machine salesman in southern Illinois; the house is repossessed, Oscar is sent to live with a strict aunt, and, worst of all, his beloved model-train layout ends up as part of the bank's Christmas display. Mr. Applegate, the bank's night watchman and Oscar's personal friend, allows the boy in to play with his train after hours, and on Christmas Eve the trauma of a bank robbery transports Oscar into the world of the model train, headed west to meet his father in California. Locating Dad is actually the easy part. Upon arrival Oscar finds himself and Dad aged by ten years, the Army drafting young men for World War II, and newspapers and police still pursuing the 1931 case of a bank robbery in which the night watchman was killed and the eleven-year-old witness was kidnapped. Dodging the draft, getting everyone back into their proper time period, preventing Applegate's death, collecting the reward, and reclaiming his house and train involves a few Hollywood luminaries, a meeting with pre-crash New York financiers, and more time-warping train travel. Both the Christmas setting and Ibatoulline's photorealistic full-color illustrations may call to mind some of the Polar Express atmosphere middle-graders remember from when they were just kids. It's all a bit more overdrawn and convoluted than it needs to be, but the delight of boarding the classic rolling stock compensates for any ragged plot edges. This plays to an age group often shortchanged amid a glut of Christmas picture books, and it should be welcome as an offbeat holiday read.