about the book
So you want a new pet, one that doesn’t slobber? Maybe what you want is a pet train!
The narrator warns you not to grab the first one you find. From iron horses to sleek bullet trains, each has a very different personality, you know!
Finding the right train can be hard to do. Did you know the ones in the museums usually just stand around? Maybe you want something more active?
Once you find the right train, how do you capture it? Smoke signals might work.
Of course, you’ll want to name your pet train. There’s the standard Smokey, but how about Sir Chugsalot?
Once you get it home, then what? What does it eat? How does it feel about bridges? Can you teach it fetch and roll over?
Finally, how do you know you have found the perfect pet train? (Don’t worry, it’ll be obvious!)
about the author
Jason Carter Eaton likes to tell tall stories. In fact, if you ask him where he was born, he’s likely to tell you one of several U.S. small towns or even one in Ireland! And he’s a bit of a goof-off too. Most typical workdays, he spends way too much time napping on the couch.
The good thing is that after lying about, Jason usually comes up with all sorts of brilliant ideas. Then he’ll work in a crazy burst, usually in a hotel room somewhere, living off of energy drinks and dark chocolate. His last work session yielded four books in five days!
Jason honed his writing skills at Emory University and began working for a film producer. Playwright Martin McDonagh convinced Jason that he had to get serious about writing, so he quit his job and moved to Ireland to be mentored by this “mad genius.”
What resulted is Jason’s first picture book, The Day My Runny Nose Ran Away, and his first young adult novel, The Facttracker. He sold the film rights to the novel to MGM and wrote the screenplay. That led to a bunch of other movie scripts, including the story line for Ice Age 3. The opening scene where Manny the lumbering mammoth panics over the birth of his baby is based on Jason’s own experiences. When his first child was born, he was a nervous wreck!
How to Train a Train was inspired by his son, Milo, who was just three years old when he turned to his daddy and said, “I want a pet train!” Jason says he nearly dropped his toupee! He hugged Milo and ran off to his studio to write his newest picture book!
Jason lives in Sleepy Hollow, New York, with his wife Lisa, son Milo, and a giant Newfoundland mutt named Pushkin.
Sources:
Author biography: GoodReads
Author biography: Candlewick
Author interview: Elizabeth Dulemba
about the illustrator
John Rocco grew up in Barrington, Rhode Island, working for the shell fishing industry of Narragansett Bay. The work was hard, but raking up clams while standing in a leaky boat is an adventure many young boys might envy.
John went to the Rhode Island School of Design and School of Visual Arts in New York City. His career took off when Whoopi Goldberg approached him to illustrate her book Alice. From there, he jumped did graphic design for several big companies.
He also worked at Walt Disney Imagineering and at Dreamworks, acting as the art director for the highly successful first Shrek movie. He also illustrates the covers of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and creates CGI commercials, special effects, and projects for museums.
John is an extremely focused artist. Every work day, he is in his art studio as soon as he drops his daughter off at school and works long and hard, nearly finishing a painting each day. When writing, he’s up at 5:30 in the morning!
With wife Aileen, daughter Alaya, and their dog Jag, John lives alternately in Brooklyn, where he works, and in upstate Pennsylvania, where the entire family restored a farmhouse built in the 1860s—much to the chagrin of the chipmunks, mice, and six bats that once lived there.
Sources:
Illustrator website
Illustrator interview: Elizabeth Dulemba
Also by John Rocco:
Super Hair-O and the Barber of Doom. Hyperion Press. 2013.
Blackout. Hyperion Press. 2011.
Fu Finds the Way. Hyperion Press. 2009.
Boy, Were We Wrong about the Solar System by Kathleen V. Kudlinski. Dutton Juvenile. 2008.
Moonpowder. Hyperion Press. 2008.
Wolf! Wolf!. Hyperion Press. 2007.
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