An appealing adventure that celebrates the wilderness.
A young boy and his dog seek a home in the woods in this debut picture book.
Wolfgang, a blond-haired White boy with a trusty Dalmatian, decides to live in the wild, and he’s out the door of his family’s cabin before his mother can tell him, “Dinner will be ready when you come home.” Accompanied by his pooch and a parade of wild animals, Wolfgang heads into the woods and arrives at a vast lake. When he encounters animals, he asks about their homes. But he realizes that the anthill is too small, the pine tree too high, and the forest too vast for him to make a cozy home. Finally, when his mother calls him for dinner, he returns to his house, happy to be there—but still intent on living in the wild the next day. Using vibrant language to describe Wolfgang’s odyssey, Kelly Birdsong and Tim Birdsong make the textures, sounds, sights, and smells vivid for young readers. Kramer’s mixed-media illustrations, which feature cartoon and sketched characters and animals against painted backgrounds, are equally inviting. But the assortment of creatures is never mentioned in the text, and readers may be surprised that a bear, wolf, fox, dog, and squirrel get along so well. The images also indicate a much wider world throughout the story than is indicated in the last pages when Wolfgang returns home. This will lead many readers to question how much of the trek is in the boy’s imagination.
An appealing adventure that celebrates the wilderness.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2023
ISBN: 9781667880235
Page Count: 32
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world.
A quiet book for putting young children to bed in a state of snowy wonder.
The magic of the north comes alive in a picture book featuring Inuit characters. In the sky at nighttime, snow falls fast. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a raven roosts atop a tall building. / … / In the sky at nighttime, a mother’s delicate song to her child arises like a gentle breeze.” With the repetition of the simple, titular refrain, the author envisions what happens in a small town at night: Young children see their breath in the cold; a hunter returns on his snowmobile; the stars dazzle in the night sky. A young mother rocks her baby to sleep with a song and puts the tot down with a trio of stuffed animals: hare, polar bear, seal. The picture book evokes a feeling of peace as the street lamps, northern lights, and moon illuminate the snow. The illustrations are noteworthy for the way they meld the old world with what it looks like to be a modern Indigenous person: A sled dog and fur-lined parkas combine easily with the frame houses, a pickup truck, power lines, and mobile-hung crib. By introducing Indigenous characters in an unremarkably familiar setting, the book reaches children who don’t always see themselves in an everyday context.
A tender bedtime tale set in a too-seldom-seen northern world. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77227-238-3
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Inhabit Media
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions.
Ellis, known for her illustrations for Colin Meloy’s Wildwood series, here riffs on the concept of “home.”
Shifting among homes mundane and speculative, contemporary and not, Ellis begins and ends with views of her own home and a peek into her studio. She highlights palaces and mansions, but she also takes readers to animal homes and a certain famously folkloric shoe (whose iconic Old Woman manages a passel of multiethnic kids absorbed in daring games). One spread showcases “some folks” who “live on the road”; a band unloads its tour bus in front of a theater marquee. Ellis’ compelling ink and gouache paintings, in a palette of blue-grays, sepia and brick red, depict scenes ranging from mythical, underwater Atlantis to a distant moonscape. Another spread, depicting a garden and large building under connected, transparent domes, invites readers to wonder: “Who in the world lives here? / And why?” (Earth is seen as a distant blue marble.) Some of Ellis’ chosen depictions, oddly juxtaposed and stripped of any historical or cultural context due to the stylized design and spare text, become stereotypical. “Some homes are boats. / Some homes are wigwams.” A sailing ship’s crew seems poised to land near a trio of men clad in breechcloths—otherwise unidentified and unremarked upon.
Visually accomplished but marred by stereotypical cultural depictions. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6529-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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