25 August 2017 TRAIN I RIDE by Paul Mosier, Harper, January 2017, 192p., ISBN: 978-0-06-245573-4

“I’m sitting in a railway station

Got a ticket to my destination”

--Paul Simon, “Homeward Bound” (1966)

“Palm Springs is a place in the middle of an empty desert with gigantic mountains above it. It’s so hot in the summer I felt like I’d go up in a poof of smoke, and way up in the mountains above it, the snowy peaks would look down at me and laugh. There are mostly old retired people and nothing to do except play bingo and golf.

Gramma lived in what was pretty much the armpit of Palm Springs. Some days I hated it with all my heart.

But in spite of it not being such a wonderful place, and Gramma not being the warmest or the most entertaining person around, I wasn’t happy to leave it behind. It was what I knew--for two years, anyway. It was comfortably dreadful. And now I’m rolling away from it because Gramma can’t take care of me anymore.”

I love the exquisite timing of the reveals in TRAIN I RIDE. When the tale begins, we don’t know any more about the almost-thirteen-year-old narrator than the above. We don’t even know her name. But, with great understatement, she hands us one piece to the puzzle after another. Who is she? How has she gotten to this place and point in time? What’s happened to her Gramma and her parents? And, where is she now heading on this Amtrak train, chaperoned by Dorothea, a Southern accented Amtrak employee?

Given the mystery in which she is enshrouded, I am reluctant to give away any of the reveals. But as you’ll be able to see from the cover, she has green hair.

TRAIN I RIDE takes place entirely on the train. Technically, it’s a set of two trains and she periodically gets to step out for breaks along with the rest of the passengers. But the story is contained within the train where our young heroine is riding coach, having to sleep sitting up night after night.

The main character is so real that I’ll be wondering about her future for a long time to come. There are a series of other exceptionally well-drawn characters on board the train whom we and the main character come to know. In addition to the chaperone Dorothea, they include:

-- The Amtrak conductor, “a short guy who walks like a penguin.”

-- Neal, the “ridiculously good-looking” guy with the cleft chin, who works the snack counter.

-- “Tenderchunks,” a sandy-haired, poetry-loving Boy Scout, who is the target of the other Scouts’ mean spiritedness.

-- Carlos, the friendly old guy with the neatly-trimmed gray beard, who’s fond of crossword puzzles.

There’s also a broken SpongeBob watch and a heavy little black box.

An important character we hear much about but never meet is Dr. Lola, the school therapist back in Palm Springs, whose advice the protagonist recounts, trusts, and often tries to follow.

All of this makes TRAIN I RIDE a unique and extraordinary coming of age story about a resilient, green-haired tween who will capture your heart.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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