Teaching resources for Locomotive from Simon & Schuster are here. These include a (Common Core-friendly) curriculum guide in PDF form, here.

 

A review and a great collection of resources and teaching ideas is on the School Library Journal blog The Classroom Bookshelf in a post by Erika Thulin Dawes, here. It’s especially good to see the selection of complementary titles here; the story in Locomotive is meant to be the story of a train ride, and also to show a part but only a part of the larger American story — there's more to the story of the steam locomotive than could fit in any single book, even a long one.

 

From Professor Myra Zarnowski and Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing (PDF): Launching Nonfiction Author Studies: A focus for teaching the Common Core State Standards with books by Brian Floca — including Moonshot, Lightship, and Locomotive. (The full Launching Nonfiction Author Studies guide, featuring a dozen S&S nonfiction authors, is here.)

 

Audio: An introduction to Locomotive at teachingbooks.net.

 

Posts about Locomotive on my blog are here.

 

A video from the Brooklyn Public Library about working in Brooklyn, with a look at Locomotive in progress. October 22, 2010.

 

"Full Steam Ahead with Brian Floca," an interview with Jennifer M. Brown at School Library Journal, September 6, 2013.

 

"Epic, Intimate Locomotive," by Julie Danielson. Kirkus Reviews, September 16, 2013.

 

Video: I discussed making Locomotive at the 2013 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. The slides that accompany this talk are not visible in this video, but most of the talk still makes sense (possibly). September 21, 2013.

 

Video: Three clips about making Locomotive on the website of Fairfax Network's show "Meet the Author." September 24, 2013.

 

"Q & A with Elisha Cooper and Brian Floca," by Libby Morse, Publishers Weekly, October 8, 2013.

 

Video: A clip from the ERT/Booklist Author Forum on nonfiction for youth, with Tonya Bolden, Kadir Nelson, Steve Sheinkin, Melissa Sweet, and moderator Ilene Cooper, at the 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. January 25, 2014.

 

"An "Unreal" and "Fantastic" Caldecott Call for 2014 Winner Brian Floca," by John A. Sellers, Publishers Weekly, January 27, 2014.

 

"Temple Native Awarded Caldecott" (Local Boy Makes Good!) Coverage in my hometown newspaper, the Temple Daily Telegram, by Susan Chandler, February 12, 2014.

 

"The sights, sounds and thrills of the railroad": a post-Caldecott interview with the editors of BookPage

 

"Riding High: Brian Floca on the Remarkable Process Behind His Caldecott-winning Locomotive," by Robin Smith, School Library Journal, March 3, 2014.

 

A PDF of the Caldecott Medal acceptance speech for Locomotive is here, and video of the speech is on YouTube, here.

 

For media and classroom use, a high-resolution image of the cover of Locomotive is available from Simon & Schuster here.

 

And last but by no means least, a few poems about the railway that reflect wonderfully some of the amazement, admiration, and even fear locomotives engendered when they were new — a monster taught/to come to hand... as swift as thought/across the land!