We bought this book when we where in Hong Kong last year from Book Buddy.
At HKD175, it’s quite pricey but since it’s a collection of the original stories (and illustrations!) on Thomas, Percy, Toby, Edward, Gordon, Henry and James, we bought it for Lucas.
He loved listening to the stories (which seems to be the source of the individual stories on the Thomas DVDs) but I have to skip some descriptive parts to hold on to his attention.
We are introduced to Thomas the Tank Engine, his relationship with Gordon, his forgotten guard, his infamous race with Bertie the bus and his ‘fishing’ adventures.
His favourite stories are of course about Thomas but he also likes to read about ‘Edward’s Day Out’ and James, especially ‘James and the Bootlace’, ‘Troublesome Trucks’ and ‘Buzz Buzz’.
Since he’s used to the images of Thomas on the DVDs, I was surprised to see that he didn’t mind the original illustrations, which look really different from the commercial ones!
Most of the illustrations in the book were by C. Reginald Dalby (e.g. the cover page) but there were also illustrations by John T. Kenney and Gunvor and Peter Edwards.
I love the illustrations by Gunvor and Peter Edwards, a brother and sister team because I find that the trains’ faces were more expressive and there was more ‘action’ in the illustrations 
You can check out almost the entire original collection of Thomas the Tank Engine storybooks at “The Real Lives of Thomas the Tank Engine” (including the new series created by Christopher Awdry, the Rev. Awdry’s son, for whom the Thomas books were written).
After reading this book, I wonder what the original collections look and feel like! Since the Thomas series has passed its 60th year anniversary, I wonder why they never hit Malaysian shores (a Commonwealth country) the way Enid Blyton did???
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
But the books are available in KL. Well, it was the last time I was there. This book is very expensive tho. I was lucky to find it in the library and read it together with my boys.
But… I found that Americans really bastardized Thomas. You should see the American Version of one Thomas movie. Had Alex Baldwin in it…man, that was really bad! Maybe that was because I am used to the English Version.
Mott – We were going to be stuck in China for almost 5 months, you see, which is why we needed this book. I’m so happy to have found the library here
Only one miserable Thomas book but loads of other children’s books I could introduce him to.
There’s a Thomas movie already? I heard of the musical but not this. By the way, what’s “bastardized”? I know the noun but it’s the first time I’ve heard it used as a verb! LOL
In any case, I am TRYING to control this Thomas frenzy and I’m thankful he doesn’t like the books with the TV versions. Phew…