Description Kate and her younger brother Tom lead boring and uninteresting lives. And surely her parents have something to do with it. Why can't Kate go on extraordinary adventures and save the world like the protagonists of the books she reads? Even her eleventh birthday seems like it will be just as nondescript, until her mysterious uncle Herbert, whom she didn't know, surprises her with the most unexpected, impressive, and inappropriate birthday present imaginable: a colossal steam engine named The Silver Arrow. Her parents want to return the gift to Uncle Herbert, but before that happens, Kate and Tom travel to distant lands aboard the Silver Arrow and in the company of all kinds of exotic animals that, it seems, can talk. Armed solely with their curiosity, wit, and the thrill of the unknown to guide them, Kate and Tom suddenly find themselves on the adventure of a lifetime.