Yesterday evening, my 3 year old and I sat together for our reading time. He’d chosen “Bulgy” from his My Thomas Story Library collection, which I bought at MPH Gurney Plaza under the “3 for 2 Value Buy” promotion.
First page of “Bulgy” – I was reading the line “Duck, Donald and Douglas were taking passengers from the station to other parts of the island…” when he pointed out:
Looking at the blue train, I saw what he meant because Donald & Douglas are a pair of twin, black trains. To show Mummy supporting evidence, the pint-sized researcher ran and grabbed his “Thomas and Friends: Railway Rhymes” and flipped through the pages until he came to the poem on Donald and Douglas.
In case his poor old Mum still didn’t see it, he went on to point out that Douglas is BLACK, not BLUE. Hmm…did the production team botch up the colour separation process?
Then, he flipped through the pages until we came to Edward’s poem – true enough, poor Douglas was painted in Edward’s bright blue!
The 3 year old was REALLY UPSET over the mistake because he kept saying, “Wrong colour! That(‘s) not Douglas, it’s Edward!” His pudgy little face had knitted eyebrows, he was pacing the floor and he kept referring to the pages on Donald & Douglas and Edward to show me the mistake.
Boy, I sure wish that either the publisher, the book seller, the graphic artist or even Rev. W. Awdry could be here to deal with this No. 1 Thomas the Tank Engine fan!
Seeing the gross error, I took out “Emily”, which I’d bought from Book Buddy at Ocean Terminal, Harbour City, Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong.
Can you see how loose the pages are? Half the pages had fallen out after the first reading…
Now, almost ALL the pages have fallen out! I’ve had to tape EACH and EVERY page together, resulting in a very pitiful looking “Emily”.
Before I start bashing the printing quality of any country, I flipped to the front matter of “Emily” and “Bulgy” and found: “PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN”.
Then, I took out “Sir Handel”, his first book in the collection. Bought three years ago, “Sir Handel” (like the old train) still looks good and stays strong.
Guess what? “Sir Handle” is PRINTED IN CHINA! Not everything is bad from that country 
Now that the mystery is solved, I wonder if either MPH or Book Buddy (or Egmont) will give me a refund or new books in exchange for these poor quality ones? Only one way to find out!
I certainly hope that the book retailers and book publishers will be as nice as the book retailer in Hertha von Gebhardt’s “Love from Nicky”.
Here are some titles in our “Thomas & Friends” collection:
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- REVIEW: The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
- REVIEW: The Great Book of Transport by Lynne Gibbs
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
At the end of Donald and Douglas’ story, the Fat Controller says both engines can stay on Sodor and asks what colour paint they would like. They both say blue. It is not an error made in printing or publishing.
Perhaps is would be of some benefit for the child to see the ORIGINAL stories written by the author himself. In the ORIGINAL, not the TELEVISION series, Donald and Douglas ask to be painted blue after they are told they can stay on the Railway in “The Deputation”. The television series, regrettably, left this, and several other details, out of the series. For instance, modern fans will tell you that Toad is Oliver’s brake van, but in the ORIGINAL stories Toad was indeed rescued with Oliver but became Dougals’ brake van. Case in point.
Jamie’sMum – Thanks for pointing this out. We have not been reading the books in order since my tot chose the books himself.
dtrain1925 – Yes, I agree with you but the problem with our bookstores is that the TV series books are prominently promoted and displayed.
I HAD to hunt down a bumper copy of Thomas the Tank Engine featuring the original illustrations and stories, which sadly didn’t have the Donald & Douglas stories in them!
Will look out for them. When I told my tot this, he said, “No!” as he doesn’t like changes
Put simply, the universe of Thomas and his friends is complicated as such that things, for example, like Donald and Douglas’s colour may variate depending on whether the collection more so supports the ‘Railway Series’ cannon, the books on which the TV Series, a separate canon, is based. Unfortunately, the Railway Series is much harder to find these days, and have become somewhat particularly neglected.
The ‘Thomas Story Library’ seems to take elements from both canons, and combine them as such that while Donald and Douglas are blue, characters and incidents exclusive to the TV Series are also combined in the collection.
As for the quality of the ‘Emily’ book, this appears to be an independent incident. All personal copies of every single book in this collection which I own are still of good quality.
eDWaRDTHeGReaT, of Sodor Island Forums
eDWaRDTHeGReaT – Thanks for the feedback. I agree with you the world of Thomas and friends is an intricate but interesting one! As I read each story with my tot, I feel as if I’m joining him in becoming a Thomas expert
Sadly, the library here doesn’t have much of a Thomas collection although we found lots of books on trains. Will have to build our collection one book by one book as we’ve been doing…
Donald & Douglas do get painted blue at the end of their story.
My Son has issues with the Jack and Alfie stories – in both books they refer to either Max or Monty (the twin dump trucks) but the pictures show a picture of the wrong truck.
They look the same, except that Max is number 15 while Monty is number 16… and little boys who love Thomas and friends tend to notice details like that.
Megan – Sounds like both our sons are very similar! He’s starting to differentiate between the steam engines and the diesels so I’m prepared for more debates in the future
I got to look out for the Donald & Douglas book…
if i were you i would read the donald and doglas story as it does say at the end that they are going to be painted blue BUT my son is 3 aswell and he struggles to understand why in the older episodes and books that they are black and the new episodes and books they are blue, i dont no why they changed the colour it is very strange hope i helped
from jacks mummy
Stacey, you haven’t read the comments above, have you? :/
It Is Douglas! Donald and Douglas In the RWS was painted blue but in the TV series, they were black. The error was made in “My Thomas Story Library Book” “Duck”
I guess? i havent read all of the books
Dylan – I think I should get the Donald & Douglas book to settle this mystery once and for all
in the TV series: Donald and Douglas are black, in the books, they arrive in there black paint but when the Fat controller buys them, he paints them blue.
hope this helps.
Jay Jay – Thanks for this info! Now that he understands the concept of getting a new coat of paint, I’ll bring out these batch of books again and seek his opinion
Donald and Douglas were originally painted black in the Railway Series, but after The Fat Controller bought the two, they were painted blue to remind them of their home: Scotland. But in the TV Series, Britt Allcroft stupidly kept their original black paint scheme. And how could your son not tell the difference between Douglas and Edward?
TheHunsletWD0-6-0ST – Thanks for explaining the history behind painting Donald and Douglas a bright blue. I don’t like the Britt Allcroft TV series either but the kids love them. In fact, my little girl is fast becoming a Thomas fan too.
Do you have kids? At 3, their ability to tell differences are limited to colour, shapes and sizes, I think. That’s probably why he thought the blue Douglas was Edward.