Book excerpt: Preschool boys and girls will learn lessons about growing up with Thomas and his engine friends in this all-new hardcover storybook collection! Train-loving boys and girls ages 2-5 will love to learn important lessons about growing up with Thomas the Tank Engine in this 96-page beautifully illustrated hardcover collection featuring four stories about feelings, being kind, respecting rules, and making friends. In the early 1940s, a loving father crafted a small blue wooden train engine for his son, Christopher. The stories that this father, the Reverend W Awdry, made up to accompany the wonderful toy were first published in 1945 and became the basis for the Railway Series, a collection of books about Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends--and the rest is history. Thomas & Friends(TM) are now a big extended family of engines and others on the Island of Sodor. They appear not only in books but also in television shows and movies, and as a wide variety of beautifully made toys. The adventures of Thomas and his friends, which are always, ultimately, about friendship, have delighted generations of train-loving boys and girls for more than 70 years and will continue to do so for generations to come.