NOBODY BUT ME

In this Swedish import, a youngster’s imagination (or is it reality?) leads to quite the summer adventure.

The story begins with a pale-skinned mother and child at an outdoor swimming spot. With Mom’s prompting, the child puts on a life jacket, then sets off in an inflatable boat while Mom is gabbing with another parent. The protagonist floats through a jungle, observed by children who seem to live in the trees, winds through a town in which citizens apparently don’t notice the little one (although the jungle children, who have followed along, do), and plunges down a waterfall. The jungle kids rescue the little one and shepherd the child back to the swimming spot, where Mom’s still yakking. Has any time elapsed? It’s all very Where the Wild Things Are, although the illustrations, which resemble impressionistic, ultra-saturated watercolors, are uniquely Lundberg’s. The story is wordless throughout the pages in which the child is out of Mom’s sight line; the mother-and-child dialogues before and after the adventure are the book’s only text—and the story’s emotional core. So, was the journey all in the youngster’s mind? It seems likely, and yet an object that looks like a souvenir of the little one’s travels suggests otherwise. 

This maybe-fantastical story of a child’s burgeoning independence rewards the open-minded and the keen-eyed.