The Polar Express
Late one Christmas Eve after the town has gone to sleep, the boy boards the mysterious train that waits for him: the Polar Express bound for the North Pole. When he arrives, Santa offers the boy any gift he desires. The boy modestly asks for one bell from the harness of the reindeer. The gift is granted. On the way home the bell is lost.
On Christmas morning, the boy finds the bell under the tree. The mother of the boy admires the bell, but laments that it is broken, for you see, only believers can hear the sound of the bell. In strange and moving shades of full color art, Chris Van Allsburg creates an otherworldly classic of the Christmas season.
The Polar Express evokes the same sense of mystery as his previous imaginative books, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, Jumanji, and The Wreck of the Zephyr.
Caldecott Honor Book
On Christmas morning, the boy finds the bell under the tree. The mother of the boy admires the bell, but laments that it is broken, for you see, only believers can hear the sound of the bell. In strange and moving shades of full color art, Chris Van Allsburg creates an otherworldly classic of the Christmas season.
The Polar Express evokes the same sense of mystery as his previous imaginative books, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, Jumanji, and The Wreck of the Zephyr.
Caldecott Honor Book
Price: $18.95
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Chris Van Allsburg
RISD ’75 [Sculpture]
Chris Van Allsburg first beckoned readers into his enchanted imagination — a place where, “something strange or puzzling,” is sure to happen — with The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (Houghton Mifflin, 1979). The string of books that followed (The Polar Express, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and The Z Was Zapped, to name a few) sealed his reputation as a perennial favorite with both children and adults. In Zathura (2002), a two-dimensional game board unfolds into a three-dimensional world, enveloping two boys and their house and taking them on a trip through outer space and back in time. Among Van Allsburg’s numerous awards are Caldecott Medals for The Polar Express (1986) and Jumanji (1982), which was made into a feature film and heralded in The New York Times Book Review for its “subtle intelligence beyond the call of illustration.”
Chris Van Allsburg first beckoned readers into his enchanted imagination — a place where, “something strange or puzzling,” is sure to happen — with The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (Houghton Mifflin, 1979). The string of books that followed (The Polar Express, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and The Z Was Zapped, to name a few) sealed his reputation as a perennial favorite with both children and adults. In Zathura (2002), a two-dimensional game board unfolds into a three-dimensional world, enveloping two boys and their house and taking them on a trip through outer space and back in time. Among Van Allsburg’s numerous awards are Caldecott Medals for The Polar Express (1986) and Jumanji (1982), which was made into a feature film and heralded in The New York Times Book Review for its “subtle intelligence beyond the call of illustration.”