New Tracks for Thomas


Book Description

After ignoring everyone's advice about learning the new route on his daily run, Thomas learns a valuable lesson about being overconfident after he gets himself lost. Original.




Treasure on the Tracks


Book Description

"As seen on DVD! King of the Railway, the movie."




Thomas Gets a Snowplow (Thomas & Friends)


Book Description

Winter is coming and Thomas, being a small engine, needs to put on his snowplow. Thomas hates his snowplow; he thinks it makes him look funny, and when he has it on, the other, bigger engines tease him. But Thomas saves the day when a big storm comes up and Toby is stuck on his branch line. From the Trade Paperback edition.




A Crack in the Track (Thomas & Friends)


Book Description

What does it take to bring the entire Island of Sodor Railway System to a halt? Just a crack in the track. Well, a crack in the track and some hail on rail . . . and a toad in the road, and a fuss on the bus. In fact, one thing leads to another until just about everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Luckily, there’s a breakdown train with a couple of cranes that can fix a big mess (and they don’t mind the rain). From the Hardcover edition.




Trouble on the Tracks


Book Description

The perfect introduction to Thomas the Tank Engine! Let Thomas and his friends help teach your little one about what to do when things don't go to plan. It's a rainy day on Sodor and the tracks are very slippery. The Fat Controller warns the trains to drive slowly, but James wants to race Thomas. Will the trains listen to The Fat Controller or will there be trouble on the tracks?




Thomas' Big Book of Beginner Books (Thomas & Friends)


Book Description

Thomas' Big Book of Beginner Books offers the following Thomas & Friends backlist favorites: Stop, Train, Stop!; A Crack in the Track; Go, Train, Go!; Blue Train, Green Train; Trains, Cranes & Troublesome Trucks; and Fast Train, Slow Train. The texts are tailored to beginning readers and will delight boys ages 3–6, whether they read them solo or listen to them read aloud.




Old Tracks, New Tricks


Book Description

Trixie and Tracky are disappointed when the wooden train set they join is full of bossy trains and snoring train tracks.




Thomas & Friends


Book Description




Abandoned Tracks


Book Description

In Abandoned Tracks, W. Thomas Mainwaring bridges the gap between scholarly and popular perceptions of the Underground Railroad. Historians have long recognized that many aspects of the Underground Railroad have been mythologized by emotion, memory, time, and wishful thinking. Mainwaring’s book is a rich, in-depth attempt to separate fact from fiction in one local area, while also contributing to a scholarly discussion of the Underground Railroad by placing Washington County, Pennsylvania, in the national context. Just as the North was not consistent in its perspective on the Civil War and the slavery issue, the Underground Railroad had distinct regional variations. Washington County had a well-organized abolition movement, even though its members helped a comparatively small number of fugitive slaves escape, largely because of the small nearby slave population in what was then western Virginia. Its origins as a slave county make it an interesting case study of the transition from slavery to freedom and of the origins of black and white abolitionism. Abandoned Tracks lends much to the ongoing scholarly debate about the extent, scope, and nature of the Underground Railroad. This book is written both for scholars of abolitionism and the Underground Railroad and for an audience interested in local history.




Lion Songs


Book Description

Like Fela Kuti and Bob Marley, singer, composer, and bandleader Thomas Mapfumo and his music came to represent his native country's anticolonial struggle and cultural identity. Mapfumo was born in 1945 in what was then the British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The trajectory of his career—from early performances of rock 'n' roll tunes to later creating a new genre based on traditional Zimbabwean music, including the sacred mbira, and African and Western pop—is a metaphor for Zimbabwe's evolution from colony to independent nation. Lion Songs is an authoritative biography of Mapfumo that narrates the life and career of this creative, complex, and iconic figure. Banning Eyre ties the arc of Mapfumo's career to the history of Zimbabwe. The genre Mapfumo created in the 1970s called chimurenga, or "struggle" music, challenged the Rhodesian government—which banned his music and jailed him—and became important to Zimbabwe achieving independence in 1980. In the 1980s and 1990s Mapfumo's international profile grew along with his opposition to Robert Mugabe's dictatorship. Mugabe had been a hero of the revolution, but Mapfumo’s criticism of his regime led authorities and loyalists to turn on the singer with threats and intimidation. Beginning in 2000, Mapfumo and key band and family members left Zimbabwe. Many of them, including Mapfumo, now reside in Eugene, Oregon. A labor of love, Lion Songs is the product of a twenty-five-year friendship and professional relationship between Eyre and Mapfumo that demonstrates Mapfumo's musical and political importance to his nation, its freedom struggle, and its culture.