On the Blue Comet

Rosemary Wells's On the Blue Comet is a train-mad adventure for 11 year olds about a boy who loses nearly everything in the hard years after the 1929 Crash.

What happens

Oscar and his dad live in the last house on Lucifer Street, in Cairo, Illinois. Their basement is one enormous model railway. Mountains, tunnels, a painted river and ten complete trains, with the sapphire-blue Blue Comet as the queen of them all.

Then the money dries up. Dad sells fewer and fewer tractors. By 1931 the bank is taking the house, and the trains go at half price to the bank president's son.

Dad heads west to look for work in California. Oscar gets parked at Aunt Carmen's. His little cousin Willa Sue lives there too.

Aunt Carmen is a lot. Margarine instead of butter, casseroles instead of Oscar's own cooking, and very firm views on cigars and electric trains (Willa Sue isn't much better). All Oscar has of Dad is a pile of postcards from town after town, with no address to write back to.

Then a stranger turns up at the porch. Mr Applegate is an out-of-work maths teacher who helps Oscar with his fractions in exchange for pancakes. He also talks about Professor Einstein, and the idea that time is like a river you might one day get across. Hold on to that thought!

Where it goes from there involves a crime and a very unusual train journey, but that's for your reader to find out.

The opening is slow and warm, and it takes its time. Oscar tells the story himself and he's great company. He's funny about his aunt and honest about how much he misses his dad. Your reader gets a real feel for what those years meant for ordinary families.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Oscar's mum died when he was little, in an accident at the fireworks factory. It's told in a few lines at the very start, as backstory. There's also talk of ruined millionaires jumping from windows, and two poems about dying fathers that make Oscar cry.

It's set in America, so expect words like hobo, and plenty of slang from the time.

For a sensitive reader the early chapters might feel quite sad. If yours loves trains, history or a big, old-fashioned story, there's so much here to get lost in.

What to read next

If they'd like another child packed off to a relative while a parent goes away, try The Return of the Railway Children. Edie leaves wartime London for an aunt she's never met, with steam trains all the way.