This is the rare book a child physically operates. A wind-up steam train comes with it, and the track is built into the pages: wind the train, set it down and watch it run through cities, past mountains, over rivers and into tunnels while the story stays open on the floor.

Then the better half of the idea. The track pieces lift out and slot together, so the ten scenes stop being separate spreads and become one giant loop running across the carpet. That is the moment a book normally read in four minutes turns into an afternoon, and it is why this one gets pulled off the shelf again long after the novelty of most gift books has worn off.

Fiona Watt writes the Usborne titles children reach for without being asked, and the whole thing is built at board-book weight and thickness, so it survives being carried around, reassembled wrong, and driven into a table leg at speed.