This is a 'book-as-toy' done right. It is physically impressive, unfolding into a massive train that invites kids to crawl along beside it while they count. It is the kind of high-quality board book that actually justifies the shelf space because it doubles as a play activity.
Number Train
book2024
92%
WISE Score
A board book that unfolds into a two-meter-long train with flaps to lift, wheels to spin, and a menagerie of animals to count.
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Screenwise Verdict
Age Fit
Perfect for ages 1 to 5. It hits the sweet spot for toddlers who need to touch everything and preschoolers who are just starting to master counting to ten.
WISE Breakdown
Wholesome
95
It is a gentle, animal-filled counting book with zero edge. The rhyming text and predictable structure are perfect for the preschool nervous system.
Imaginative
88
The concertina format transforms the book into a physical toy. It encourages kids to interact with the story as a physical space rather than just a flat page.
Safe
98
Standard board book safety. No digital components or mature themes. The only concern is the physical durability of the folds with very rough toddlers.
Enriching
90
Hits the language comprehension strands of literacy hard through rhyme and vocabulary, while reinforcing one-to-one correspondence in counting.
Parent Info
✓
Why It Might Be Great
- Tactile play is the star here; the book unfolds into a long concertina that stretches across the living room floor like a real train.
- Ingela P. Arrhenius's illustrations bring a bold, mid-century modern aesthetic that appeals to design-minded parents and high-contrast-loving kids.
- The lift-the-flap windows turn counting into a game of hide-and-seek, keeping toddlers engaged longer than a standard picture book.
- The spinning wheels on the front cover and the counting game on the back provide extra interaction once the story is finished.
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What to Watch For
- The concertina format is vulnerable to 'enthusiastic' toddlers who might try to sit on the folds or rip the long seams if left unsupervised.
- It is a floor book, meaning it's great for play but awkward for traditional lap-reading once it's fully stretched out.
Conversation Starters
- "How many wheels can you find that actually spin?"
- "Which animal is hiding behind the blue carriage door?"
- "Can you find the animal that's wearing a tiny hat?"
- "Which carriage is your favorite color?"
Deep Dive
Jonathan Emmett and Ingela P. Arrhenius are a powerhouse duo in the board book world, and Number Train is a great example of why. In a market flooded with generic counting books, this one stands out by being a physical experience.
From a literacy perspective, this book is doing more than just teaching numbers. By using rhyme and hidden animals, it builds language comprehension—one of the key strands of the Reading Rope. Kids aren't just memorizing '1, 2, 3'; they are predicting rhymes and associating words with visual cues.
The art style is classic Arrhenius: bold, clean, and slightly retro. It’s the kind of book that looks just as good on a nursery shelf as it does spread out on the rug. While it is sturdy, keep in mind that any concertina book has more 'fail points' than a standard spine, so if your kid is in a particularly destructive phase, you might want to be the one doing the unfolding.
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