About the Author

Elena de Roo is an Auckland children’s writer and poet. Her first book, The Rain Train, was illustrated by Brian Lovelock. This was followed by the Ophelia Wild series, illustrated by Tracy Duncan. The Name at the End of the Ladder, a junior fiction fantasy novel, will be released in 2014 from Walker Books Australia.

Brian Lovelock is a scientist working in the power industry in New Zealand. He has painted all his life but has only recently ventured into the world of book illustration. His previous titles with Walker Books Australia include Your Mother Didn’t Do That! and Roadworks which won the Picture Book category in the 2009 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults. In 2013, Brian was long-listed for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Award for his work on Demolition. In 2014, Flight of the Honey Bee won the LIANZA Russell Clark Illustration Award, was a Storylines Notable Book and was a finalist for the LIANZA Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award and the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards.

Reviews

De Roo’s rhyming, lyrical text never derails; the onomatopoeic verse rolls rhythmically along, both lulling listeners and moving the action forward.…Lovelock’s misty watercolor and ink illustrations, dominated by dusky purples and blues, convey the excitement of a special nighttime journey. The Rain Train’s soothing words and colors should deliver little travelers straight to dreamland.
*Horn Book*

An accomplished text for a first-time writer of picture books, but de Roo, a poet, does it well. Nicely composed and full of vitality, the illustrations capture the mood of the verse and the movement of the train as well as the children’s quiet pleasure in this imagined journey.
*Booklist*

This appealing variation on the nighttime story will put children’s imaginations on a soothing track for going to bed.
*School Library Journal*