When the Whistle Blows

by Fran Cannon Slayton Narrated by Peter Berkrot

Overview

Jimmy Cannon loves trains. And he wants to work on the railroad more than anything when he grows up. After all, his father is the foreman in Rowlesburg, and all the men in his family have worked on the rails. But times are changing in the 1940s, and Jimmy's father sees a different future for his son. Join Jimmy on the ride of a lifetime, through midnight Halloween romps, the championship football game, and a secret society in this coming-of-age story set during the last of the railroad days..

Editorial Reviews

Mary Quattlebaum

Fran Cannon Slayton expertly blends suspense with emotional complexity in the seven interconnected stories of When the Whistle Blows…This first novel has many strengths—vivid period details, an engaging voice, finely tuned sentences—but its greatest is the ability to articulate the ways of fathers and sons, of love and loss, expectation and hurt, of words unsaid and those that pierce like a "single, steaming whistle."
—The Washington Post

Booklist

[A] memorable novel . . .

Kirkus Reviews

Set in a railroad town in West Virginia in the 1940s, these quaint and compelling short stories, which together function as a novel, tell the engrossing tale of young Jimmy Cannon, who is growing from boy to man at the very same time that the most important elements in his life-his father and the steam-engine trains he has loved since childhood-are chugging toward their last breaths. The stories, taking place on a series of seven All Hallow's Eves, follow Jimmy as he engages in childish pranks, plays in the championship football game, spies on the secret railroad society that his father and brothers belong to and finally is inducted into that society after his father's death. Ultimately, Jimmy learns to accept that the days of the steam engine are over, to better understand his emotionally distant father and to embrace his role as newest member of his father's society, which turns out to be centered not on the railroad after all, but on faith, brotherhood and love. An unassuming masterpiece. (Historical fiction. 10 & up)

From the Publisher

-An unassuming masterpiece.+ -Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172609428
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	01/20/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged
Age Range:	8 - 11 Years

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