Ernestine is invited to go camping with Aunt Jackie and cousin Samantha. Her anticipation builds as she packs supplies (stuffed Foxy is a must), tests her new flashlight and makes trail mix with Dad. In graphic-novel-style layouts, the road trip from city to country unfolds — the girls look at comic books, play cat’s cradle, stare out the window, sing along with the radio — culminating in a full-spread illustration of the destination, a lake in the woods. Ernestine has much to discover. Setting up camp is work. Lake swimming might include live fish. Hiking is not the same thing as walking. But there are wonderful things as well: massive trees too wide to reach around, strange bugs to study, unfamiliar foods that prove to be surprisingly tasty. The first-person voice is on point: Ernestine loads her backpack so full of food for a short hike — supplementing the trail mix with essentials such as “leftover chips, cheese sticks, peanut butter crackers and cookies” — that she can barely climb a hill. “When we finally stop, I eat a lot so my backpack will be lighter on the way back!” Her excitement, curiosity, hesitations and fears play out in her dialogue and keep her awake when everyone else is sleeping: “I’m boiling. I need to get my socks off! Where’s my water bottle? Where is Foxy? I’m freezing. Is anyone else awake?” The magic of the nighttime sky is just the tonic she needs; stargazing with Aunt Jackie and Samantha settles her down. By the next day, a confident Ernestine tackles a swim in the lake and helps break down the campsite. The illustrations, a mix of pencil line drawings with digital collage and painting, are evocative and effective. Step-by-step sequences, presented in panels, deconstruct key activities like making a campfire. Mann’s diagram showing how to assemble a s’more might inspire even those who rarely leave their apartments. A young, bespectacled boy races through his school day, leaving his dog behind. Then, with perfect timing, the child on the run reaches fever pitch just as the text and art shut down the action with a full-page spread that shouts, “STOP.” And the story takes a breath. Abruptly, the graphic, mixed-media illustrations by Christopher Silas Neal that were filled with kids, buildings and school buses settle down and shift their color palette to the cool side. Neal expands on the slim but pithy text to build out the boy’s world with a diverse set of classmates and the charming little houses where they live. There’s no insistence that working hard is bad -- toys are present along with books and paperwork. The need for a break is the point. So the boy and his dog slow down, take a walk, play, lie in the grass and breathe. “This is what it’s all about,” the text affirms. As night falls, they count stars and catch fireflies. The equivalent of a deep breathing exercise, “Hurry Up!” will likely help even the most active little multitaskers unwind. Pat Cummings’s latest books include the picture book “Where Is Mommy?” and “Trace,” her debut middle grade novel. This content was originally published here. from https://news.talknewyorkcity.com/3-picture-books-how-to-hike-camp-relax-in-the-great-outdoors-the-new-york-times/
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |