Stephen King pens children's picture book about train that comes alive

Charlie the Choo-Choo, written under the pseudonym Beryl Evans, steams out out of the pages of King’s Dark Tower fantasy series and into bookshops – with a warning for Thomas fans

If the Big Bad Wolf or the Wicked Queen aren’t frightening enough for your bedtime reading, then a nightmarish picture book from the imagination of Stephen King might be the answer.

Charlie the Choo-Choo, by one Beryl Evans, makes its first (fictional) appearance in King’s Dark Tower fantasy series, when it is spotted in a display of children’s books by the story’s child hero, Jake. “On the bright green cover was an anthropomorphic locomotive puffing its way up a hill ... its headlight was a cheerful eye which seemed to invite Jake Chambers to come inside and read all about it,” writes King.

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