First, let me hasten to say that this book isn’t just for babies.  However, Freight Train  (HarperCollins, 1978) is a great picture book for babies.  It’s also a book that can grow with your baby.  

Donald Crews won a Caldecott Medal for Freight Train.  It’s got a sleek, graphic arts feel as page by page it moves us along the tracks from railroad car to railroad car:  ”Red caboose at the back, Orange tank car next” right up to the “Black steam engine.”  The book teaches about trains, colors, motion, opposites like country and city, day and night-and all in just twenty-two pages.

Not all my children loved trains (although one particular little boy did!), but they all loved this book.  Our well-worn picture copy is a paperback, but I’ve also seen Freight Train as a board book in two different sizes.  I just bought it for a new baby, a baby boy who just might love trains.