Julie Danielson

Children's & YAPicture Book

Be whatever you want to be (without pants)

Review by Julie Danielson

There are some picture books that hit you right in the funny bone. This is a mighty feat, because humor can be tricky. Authors do best to avoid being too treacly about the whole affair or looking like they’re trying too hard. The great James Marshall once said that when it comes to humor, authors can’t call attention to themselves. It must be as effortless as a balloon in the air, he said. “You can’t show how hard you work.”

This is precisely what Rowboat Watkins does to great effect in Pete with No Pants, illustrated in his singularly unconventional style. Watkins gets out of his own way and lets the story take the stage. And that story is all about Pete, a young, gleefully uninhibited elephant. If you regularly spend time with preschoolers, you will recognize that Watkins nails the whims and capricious natures of young children.

Pete, being an elephant, is big, gray and pants-less. So are boulders. He is gray, puffy and pants-less. So are clouds. He’s also gray, “nuts about acorns” and pants-less. So are squirrels! Pete spends a day of play deciding to be those things. Descartes would be proud of the philosophical inquiry going on here: Pete doesn’t pretend to be these things; he decides to take on various personae.

Pete gets frustrated as he looks for a friend: The boulders are mute, and the squirrels (who make a series of funny asides, such as “there goes that boulder with pants again”) decide he’s a boulder and run off. Is anyone ever going to answer Pete’s knock-knock jokes?

Cue Pete’s mother. Given that she has repeatedly brought him his pants, she knows he wants a partner in play. So, off they go, running, sharing knock-knock jokes. “It’s me!” Pete declares as the punchline to one of them, content to be himself for a moment, happy to be his mother’s son. This wise, savvy mom is the beating heart of this very funny story.

It’s warm, playful and bursting with personality. Good luck prying this book out of children’s hands.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

There are some picture books that hit you right in the funny bone. This is a mighty feat, because humor can be tricky. Authors do best to avoid being too treacly about the whole affair or looking like they’re trying too hard. The great James Marshall once said that when it comes to humor, authors can’t call attention to themselves. It must be as effortless as a balloon in the air, he said. “You can’t show how hard you work.”

Children's & YAPoetryPicture Book

Buggy poems

Review by Julie Danielson

Perfect for elementary science classrooms everywhere, as well as budding entomologists, this collection of 29 original short poems about bugs (both spiders and insects) is informative and entertaining.

In rhyming poems, save for one about a walking stick that reads like one friend egging on another (“touch it”), poet Carol Murray, a former English and speech teacher, dives into the world of crickets, jumping spiders, flies, bumblebees, dung beetles and much more. Her rhythms are infectious, making this one a good read-aloud, and she makes topics such as camouflage, life cycles, larvae and life spans interesting and engaging.

Some of the poems directly address the bug in question: After describing the way in which a praying mantis folds it front legs when resting, which makes it look as if it’s praying, Murray asks, “So, tell us, Mr. Mantis, / what should we believe?” An unseen narrator also asks of a bumblebee: “Rumble, rumble, / Bumblebee. / Don’t you know / you’re bugging me?”

Many of the poems allow readers to hear directly from the bug of the poem. A spotted water beetle lays out its skills, asking for the reader’s vote, as if in a talent contest. A cockroach mourns the hatred humans have for it, and a dung beetle, despite noting its popularity in Egypt once upon a time, laments the lack of respect received today.

Melissa Sweet adds a lot of humor and imagination to these offerings with her watercolor and mixed-media illustrations. In a poem about how cicadas molt on tree trunks, Sweet shows one having hung its exoskeleton on a hanger right there on the tree. These are subtle touches in a book that otherwise doesn’t anthropomorphize these tiny creatures. It’s a book bursting with color, as if all these bugs have ventured forth on a spring day.

Each illustration features a small text note with further information about the creature, and Murray closes with three pages of “Cricket Notes,” more informational facts about each bug. Fun and accessible, this one is a must-have for elementary classrooms and libraries.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

Perfect for elementary science classrooms everywhere, as well as budding entomologists, this collection of 29 original short poems about bugs (both spiders and insects) is informative and entertaining.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Sunny days ahead

Review by Julie Danielson

This tribute to summer, the third book from Tom Brenner about a particular time of year (following And Then Comes Halloween and And Then Comes Christmas), celebrates the school-free, hot and hazy days of one of the most memory-making seasons.

It’s a time when “the days stretch out like a slow yawn,” as the book opens, “and leaves and grasses sparkle with dew.” The author captures the sights and sounds of the season: It’s a time for flip-flops, bumblebees, the sound of lawn mowers, bicycles, lemonade stands, daylight that “pushes back bedtimes,” Fourth of July parades, fireworks, visits to the lake and more. There’s exuberance on the last day of school, as illustrator Jaime Kim shows a group of children cheering in a hallway, some giving friends hugs to send them off to summer.

Kim brings readers a diverse cast of playmates; this is truly a multicultural neighborhood. It’s idyllic and picturesque: No child forgets to put on their helmet when riding bikes, and starred-and-striped flags wave all around. In this world, the children aren’t overscheduled. They’re not shuffled off to summer camp of one sort or another; these kids get to fill their summer days with play at home. And they love it—even on the days of boredom when “it’s so hot you’re practically panting and not even the sprinklers provide relief.” Still, there’s joy radiated on every sun-sparkling spread.

Brenner paces the book well, leading up to a family’s jubilant visit to "Lake Sunnyside. Old friends gather to swim all afternoon in the “silver lake” and then congregate at night for marshmallows, chocolate and some guitar-playing at the campfire. It all winds down and wraps up with the family snuggled in sleeping bags, ready for tomorrow’s adventure.

It’s the utter joy of summer captured in 32 pages, bursting with energy and nostalgia. This is a recommended read for the final day of school as students anticipate freedom from homework and sunny, lazy days.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

This tribute to summer, the third book from Tom Brenner about a particular time of year (following And Then Comes Halloween and And Then Comes Christmas), celebrates the school-free, hot and hazy days of one of the most memory-making seasons.

Children's & YAPicture Book

An evocative tale of family and sacrifice

Review by Julie Danielson

Every now and then a picture book comes along that so eloquently captures a particular time and place that the story long lingers in your mind. This is such with Town Is by the Sea, the story of a young boy who lives by the sparkling sea in a Nova Scotia town in the 1950s, yet daily watches his father head to work in a mine deep below ground.

The author uses a refrain—“It goes like this”—to contrast the two worlds. On the one hand, the boy lives on a grassy cliff by the sea with his town spreading far and wide around him. His world is expansive, and much of his life is outdoors, where he visits the sea, “calm and quiet.” Illustrator Sydney Smith brings readers resplendent paintings of the sea, sun bouncing off the waves. It’s simply gorgeous. On the other hand is his father, deep underground at work. Author and illustrator pivot from spreads of a sun-drenched seaside town to spreads of dominating blackness: “And deep down under that sea, my father is digging for coal.” We barely see the men at the bottom of each of these spreads, hunched over and hard at work.

The boy is well aware of the sacrifices his father makes. There’s no sentimentality here, and the writing is tender and understated: The boy knows it’s his father’s work, and it was once his grandfather’s work. But he knows mining means his father must enter a world of darkness, foregoing the salt-tinged air and shimmering waters of the sea just to keep food on the table.

Then there’s supper, and his father is home, safe. “He looks tired, but he gives me a big smile and a hug.” The boy knows that it will one day be his turn to mine: “In my town, that’s the way it goes.” A closing author’s note adds a bit more information about such traditions in these mining towns.

It goes like this: This is one of the most beautiful picture books you’ll see this year. It’s picture book-making at its very best.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

Every now and then a picture book comes along that so eloquently captures a particular time and place that the story long lingers in your mind. This is such with Town Is by the Sea, the story of a young boy who lives by the sparkling sea in a Nova Scotia town in the 1950s, yet daily watches his father head to work in a mine deep below ground.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Scenes of growing up

Review by Julie Danielson

In this reminder that the good teachers “see everything,” readers meet on the first page an unknown author, writing a letter to her former teacher, the special one who in her elementary-school years really understood her. “Dear Teacher,” she writes, “Whenever I had something to tell you, I tugged on your shirt and whispered in your ear. This time I’m writing a letter.”

The author of the letter recalls the first day of second grade, one that filled her with dread, since school involved two things at which she did not excel: “sitting still and listening.” But her teacher—patient, creative and dedicated—always knew precisely how to engage her students, including this antsy, curious girl. We see her, via the letter writer’s memories, gently guide the girl through her second grade year, encouraging her to learn to read (“the reading corner became our secret garden of stories”) and how to listen. Instead of forcing a student who doesn’t fit into the traditional educational mold to play by stringent rules, she calmly makes room for the girl’s way of learning, making her second grade year the most memorable of all.

Hopkinson laces this sweet, tender story with much humor. At one point, the girl has to look up “exasperating” in the dictionary. She’s unsure of its meaning but just knows she heard the teacher use it that one time she wandered off on a field trip. Carpenter puts color to clever use, accentuating the girl’s singular personality and stubbornness by giving her a bright yellow raincoat, a vivid pink dress and striking purple pants—with more muted colors for the other students.

In the end—get out your tissues for this happy cry—we see that the letter-writer is now grown and is a teacher herself, about to start her first job. “I’ll think about everything you helped me explore,” she writes, “and try my best to be like you.” It’s a heartfelt tribute to the hard work of the best teachers—those who nudge and prompt, finding smart and loving ways to inspire fidgety students to learn.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

In this reminder that the good teachers “see everything,” readers meet on the first page an unknown author, writing a letter to her former teacher, the special one who in her elementary-school years really understood her. “Dear Teacher,” she writes, “Whenever I had something to tell you, I tugged on your shirt and whispered in your ear. This time I’m writing a letter.”

Children's & YAPicture Book

Clean-up overboard

Review by Julie Danielson

Emily Gravett’s latest picture book opens memorably—with a die-cut cover and opening pages that reveal a lush, gorgeous forest. Eventually, we see Pete the badger through those die-cut holes. He’s tidying, as he likes to keep everything neat. That’s right: He tidies the very forest itself—its flowers, its foxes and birds, and even its sticks and rocks.

But on one beautiful autumn day, a leaf falls. Pete wonders at the lone leaf, then looks up in shock to see even more descending. He decides to continue tidying—but does so extensively that the trees are left bare. When this doesn’t look right to him, he digs up the trees, which causes a flood and subsequently creates a ton of mud. Pete calls in the diggers, mixers, rakers, fixers (and lots of concrete) to tidy up in the most definitive way possible. This leaves nothing, but Pete is clueless, saying that the forest is “practically perfect.” Later, when he’s unable to find food and his home (“there wasn’t a door where the door used to be!”), he realizes he’s made a mistake. He puts everything right with the help of his forest friends.

There’s a definite environmental message here in Gravett’s rhyming couplets, one about urbanization and the loss of creatures’ habitats when nature meets urban sprawl. Throw in the notion that sometimes a little bit of a mess is a little bit OK, as well as the idea that sometimes in life it’s wise to abandon control. But it’s all wrapped up in an entertaining story and Gravett’s luscious illustrations, which are rendered so brightly (via pencil, watercolor and wax crayons) that some spreads pop right off the page.

Delightfully, Gravett leaves the story a bit open-ended, asking readers to consider whether or not Pete has done well: “And Pete? Well, he promised to tidy up less. But if he succeeded is anyone’s guess!” It’s a not-so-tidy ending for a story that will get children thinking about the planet they live on.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

Emily Gravett’s latest picture book opens memorably—with a die-cut cover and opening pages that reveal a lush, gorgeous forest. Eventually, we see Pete the badger through those die-cut holes. He’s tidying, as he likes to keep everything neat. That’s right: He tidies the very forest itself—its flowers, its foxes and birds, and even its sticks and rocks.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

The wisdom of a little mischief

Review by Julie Danielson

BookPage Children’s Top Pick, April 2017

Poor Princess Cora. Her anxious parents are determined to fix all of the things that might be wrong with her. Their solution is to keep her overscheduled. Cue excessive hygiene (three baths a day) with the nanny, studies over dull books with the Queen and intensive exercise sessions with the King.

Cora, who just wants to play, so deeply resents her tightly scheduled life that she writes a letter to her fairy godmother. Wishing for a dog, she ends up with a crocodile, who promises to chew on people Cora doesn’t like. She strikes a deal with the reptile—“I want a day off,” she tells him—and he takes her place, dressing like her and telling her to head out and have fun. The look on Princess Cora’s face here is spectacular, as she’s never once had the opportunity to see what leisure is like.

This ruse works long enough for Cora to get dirty and have a blast outside. The adults back at the castle are too preoccupied (only at first) to notice that Cora’s place has been taken by a crocodile, one who essentially imprisons everyone, simulating Cora’s own daily experiences. On the castle grounds, Cora engages all her senses in moments of exploration and wonder, all the while putting her problem-solving skills to work. Through all this, Princess Cora finds peace. She also rescues herself on her own terms, speaking up in the end for what she wants, having found her courage in her play.

Newbery winner Laura Amy Schlitz, in seven well-paced chapters, has a lot to say about the modern phenomenon of rigorous educational standards and children’s lack of free time for play. As the crocodile wisely asks Cora, what kind of life is one with no trouble? There’s also a lot of humor here: The crocodile’s get-up as a little girl is delightfully absurd, and Brian Floca brings it all to vivid life in his playful illustrations.

Timely and incisive, this one’s a keeper.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

This article was originally published in the April 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Poor Princess Cora. Her anxious parents are determined to fix all of the things that might be wrong with her. Their solution is to keep her overscheduled. Cue excessive hygiene (three baths a day) with the nanny, studies over dull books with the Queen and intensive exercise sessions with the King.

Children's & YAPicture Book

A hilarious exploration

Review by Julie Danielson

The words tell one story and the pictures another in this charming tale from master picture book creator Jon Agee.

The story is told from the first-person point of view of a boy astronaut, who has traveled to Mars in his spaceship to find life. In his hand is a gift with a pretty red bow, which we learn are chocolate cupcakes. Just after he begins his trek and tells readers that everyone doubts he’ll find life on Mars, we see a wordless spread in which an alien creature—tall, rust-colored, googly-eyed and pointy-eared—pops his head out of a crater.

The boy continues to talk to the reader (or perhaps out loud to himself), losing faith all the while. He sees no life on Mars—though this large Martian follows him and reacts to the boy’s running commentary. Agee draws the Martian rather large and pear-shaped, making it look downright huggable and often vulnerable. The Martian is truly baffled by the boy’s pretty awful grasp of the obvious. Eventually, the Martian picks up the gift the boy hopelessly drops as he heads back to look for his spaceship. On his way, the boy spots a bright yellow flower and is relieved and elated to have discovered life after all. He retrieves his box, crawls across the Martian itself (thinking it’s a mountain) and heads back to Earth. Feeling like he deserves a treat, he opens his box of cupcakes while in his spaceship to discover . . . crumbs.

Child readers will thrill in being one-up on the protagonist in this tale, which is also a wonderful read-aloud. Cue the laughter of young children when they see the reactions of the Martian behind the boy. “Mars looks pretty gloomy,” the boy says, as the friendly Martian frowns, hands on hips. The final page, wherein the boy discovers that, indeed, there was more life on Mars—and more than just a plant—is a moment funny and tragic, all at once. (And quick! Grab the elementary students learning about inferencing, because that moment is inferencing gold.)

Out of this world.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

The words tell one story and the pictures another in this charming tale from master picture book creator Jon Agee.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Shapes square off

Review by Julie Danielson

BookPage Children’s Top Pick, March 2017

Triangle lives in a world of triangles. His home is a triangle-shaped mound of rock. The door to his home is triangle-shaped. All of the rocks around him are triangle-shaped, too—small, medium and big triangles. Triangle’s friend, Square, lives in a square-shaped rock with a square-shaped door and small, medium and big square-shaped rocks all around. Triangle heads that way one day to play “a sneaky trick” on his friend. Knowing Square is afraid of snakes, Triangle stands by his door and hisses. When Square figures out it’s Triangle, he chases him to his home—and gets stuck in Triangle’s doorway. (Remember that triangle-shaped door? A square on two legs can’t quite navigate that, can he?) But as stuck Square blocks the door, Triangle becomes scared. Turns out he’s afraid of the dark. “Now I have played a sneaky trick on you,” Square says, saying with glee that this was his plan all along. 

“But do you really believe him?” asks the narrator, deliciously, on the final page. 

This is funny stuff and, as to be expected from Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen, delightfully off-kilter. The bit where Square can’t get through Triangle’s door is slapstick physical comedy at its best, and the book’s entire premise taps into the sense of mischief, one-upping and questions of trust that occur on playgrounds daily. (On a more basic level, preschoolers learning shapes will be thrilled to have such a funny book on hand.)

As always with Klassen, so much is in the eyes, and the eyes of Triangle and Square go a long way in communicating abundant character. In a Q&A that accompanied the advance review copy, Klassen talks about how the very placement of Triangle’s eyes implies shiftiness, given that they are lower on his face. Square’s eye placement is right in the middle—more balanced, more dependable. But we readers have two more books ahead of us (this is the first in a planned trilogy), so luckily, we’ll learn a lot more about the characters’ shifty (or were they?) intentions.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

This article was originally published in the March 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Triangle lives in a world of triangles. His home is a triangle-shaped mound of rock. The door to his home is triangle-shaped. All of the rocks around him are triangle-shaped, too—small, medium and big triangles. Triangle’s friend, Square, lives in a square-shaped rock with a square-shaped door and small, medium and big square-shaped rocks all around. Triangle heads that way one day to play “a sneaky trick” on his friend.

Children's & YAPicture Book

A tender connection between boy and horse

Review by Julie Danielson

Tony, written by the late poet Ed Galing and illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Erin E. Stead, is a love letter to a horse, told from the point of view of someone who once saw the horse (of the book’s title) every morning—and greatly admired him. It’s a whisper of a book, affectionate and intimate, with its small trim size, spare text and soft-focus drawings.

Tony, the speaker recalls, used to head out every morning, before the sun rose, pulling a milk wagon for a man named Tom Jones. Readers never meet the “I” of the poem, who looked forward to Tony’s visit and greeted him, patting him with “gentle arms” and watching his head bow and eyes glow in the morning light. Tom refers to this person as “sir,” but that’s about all we know. This is as it should be, since Tony is the focus here, the beautiful horse depicted with Stead’s delicate but sure lines. The palette consists of merely the colors seen on the book’s cover—pencil grey, soft green and occasional moments of warm, glorious yellows. This yellow dominates the final spread, as morning arrives just as Tony and Tom Jones leave. (Aspiring illustrators, take note: This book could be a case study in how you strike a tone successfully and consistently in a picture book.)

A vellum, text-only title page opens the book, and through it we see the horse on the next page. It’s as if we are seeing him through the fog of early morning or the speaker’s own distant memory. This technique also allows both the title page and the story’s first page to serve as one; on the page with the horse, there is merely “Tony,” the poem’s first word. It’s a striking and effective way to open a poem that is essentially a memory, given that the entire poem is in past tense.

This is a book that pays loving tribute to the deep connection people can have with animals, which children surely understand. Just like the poem’s speaker, you won’t soon forget Tony.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

Tony, written by the late poet Ed Galing and illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Erin E. Stead, is a love letter to a horse, told from the point of view of someone who once saw the horse (of the book’s title) every morning—and greatly admired him. It’s a whisper of a book, affectionate and intimate, with its small trim size, spare text and soft-focus drawings.

Children's & YAPicture Book

A dreamy, soothing lullaby

Review by Julie Danielson

It’s hard to create a bedtime picture book and have it stand out on bookshelves, but Nina Laden and Melissa Castrillon have done just that in If I Had a Little Dream, a soothing lullaby of a book.

A child with pony-tailed hair ponders the world and its wonders in rhyming verses. “If I had a little land,” she opens, “I would name it There. There would be my home, be it stormy be it fair.” She imagines a tiny house, which she would name Love. She’d name her garden Whole. She wonders about nature (ponds, dogs, cats), things (books, chairs, bicycles, boats) and family, including a brother and sister. All of her wishes involve camaraderie with others: If she had a table, she’d share her food. If she had a chair, she’d rest up for her next visit with friends. If she had a bicycle, she’d visit the forest and all its animals. Laden’s verses roll right off the tongue with their pleasing rhythms. The world the girl imagines is sweet and welcoming, but never cloying.

This is the picture book debut of British illustrator Castrillon. Her pencil illustrations are digitally colored in cool blues, reds and oranges. Some spreads include spot illustrations on one side, facing a larger illustration of the girl and her wish. Many round spot illustrations are surrounded by Castrillon’s elaborate borders, involving animals and leaves. Several full-bleed, double-page spreads wow with her spot-on composition and fluid lines. There’s a lot to pore over in the girl’s inviting, imaginative world.

Best of all is the final illustration, showing the girl on her bed being held by a woman—a mother, we can assume—in a loving embrace. “If I had a little dream,” Laden writes, “I would name it You. You would make life magical, where wishes do come true.” Is the girl without parents? Without a home? Maybe this is her real mother after all, and we’ve been privy to the girl’s dreams at night. Either way, it’s a beautiful moment of a parent-child bond.

This is a dreamy book, in more ways than one.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

It’s hard to create a bedtime picture book and have it stand out on bookshelves, but Nina Laden and Melissa Castrillon have done just that in If I Had a Little Dream, a soothing lullaby of a book.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Slob problems

Review by Julie Danielson

It’s all fun and games until Viking-helmeted barbarians wreak havoc on your living room.

That’s precisely what happens in this story, told from the point of view of a young boy who refuses to clean his room. It’s dirty beyond just clothes strewn on the ground. There’s overturned pizza on the carpet and a cereal bowl that appears as if it’s been there for days. “Mom always makes a big deal out of little things,” he says. “What was the worst that could happen?”

The boy is almost delighted to see ants, flies and mice as a result of his filth. Even when a barbarian named Vlad appear—the titular line is quoted by the boy’s beleaguered mother, who seems to be in charge of the housework—and demands “an entire cupcake,” the boy think it’s cute. Then other barbarians show, taking over the entire home, even the garage. “There was no more denying it: we had an infestation of barbarians. And I didn’t think they were so cute anymore.”

Things start to get annoying for the boy—the barbarians go so far as to pick the marshmallows out of his cereal one day—and nothing (traps, scare-barians, exterminators) seems to slow down the unwelcome house guests. The boy figures his only solution—you guessed it—is to clean his room. Ultimately, this is a message book about Listening to Your Mother, after all, but that message is conveyed with humor and a dose of hyperbole that will make a lot of young readers giggle.

You can tell Mark Fearing had a lot of fun illustrating this one: The endpapers alone, featuring the creative mess on the boy’s bedroom floor (the final endpapers at least include a trash bag), are entertaining. He skips threatening and goes straight to goofy with his hairy, mostly bearded, oversize barbarians, one of them even smitten with mother’s makeup and caught applying lipstick in the bathroom. The final spread leaves readers wondering if a sequel will follow.

A fun read. No messin’ around.

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

It’s all fun and games until Viking-helmeted barbarians wreak havoc on your living room.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Lost in the winter woods, but not for long

Review by Julie Danielson

In this tender story, author-illustrator Matthew Cordell doesn’t waste any time or space to spin the tale of two lost creatures and an act of kindness. Before we even get to the title page, we meet a girl and a wolf cub, as well as their families.

As the girl heads home at the end of the school day, the snow is falling hard. She’s well equipped in her big, red coat, but the windy weather weighs her down on her walk to her warm house where her parents wait. In a parallel story, we see a group of wolves head out, yet the youngest of the pack falls behind. On one spread, two large spot illustrations show the weary young girl and the lost and confused wolf cub, each slowed down by the snow.

Eventually, they meet, and both are frightened. But the girl immediately reaches out to help, hearing the wolf’s family howling in the distance. Bravely, she ventures toward them in order to return their cub, facing her fair share of dangers along the way. In another spread with two large circular spot illustrations, we see the girl, wolf cub in her arms and her eyes wide with fear, face off with a parent wolf. The girl releases the cub, and the parent takes the baby away. On her tired journey home, she collapses in the snow, and in a kindness returned, the wolves surround her, howling her location to the search party. Cordell wraps up the story by showing the girl safe and warm in her home.

The pacing here is spot-on, the tension building with each page turn. In these nearly wordless spreads (we are only privy to such things as howls, barks, huffs and whines), Cordell builds great sympathy for both creatures, and he conveys more about the girl’s courage with body language, tone and color than any lengthy text could. The illustration showing the happy reunited human family in the snow, as well as the howling wolf pack atop the hill above them, is heartwarming and emotionally rewarding.

This one’s a keeper. 

 

Julie Danielson features authors and illustrators at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, a children’s literature blog.

In this tender story, author-illustrator Matthew Cordell doesn’t waste any time or space to spin the tale of two lost creatures and an act of kindness. Before we even get to the title page, we meet a girl and a wolf cub, as well as their families.

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