The Boy Who Loved Maps
by Kari Allen (Author) G Brian Karas (Illustrator)
This enchanting picture book about a map-making boy who is stumped when a girl asks him for a map of the perfect place helps readers appreciate the charms of their own neighborhood--and even shows them how to make a map of it!
The Mapmaker loves maps. He loves to collect them, to study them, and most of all, he loves to make them. But when a girl asks for a map of a perfect place, the Mapmaker is perplexed. She wants a map to a toes-in-the-sand-warm, X-marks-the-spot-place filled with treasures, where it smells like her birthday and she can zip around like a dragonfly. Surely, a place that is all of these things can't exist...can it? Well, after a fun-filled day of exploring the neighborhood, the Mapmaker will discover that the perfect place--home--has been right in front of him all along.
Here is a picture book, as creative as it is charming, that celebrates home, and is a gentle reminder to look around and appreciate what surrounds you.
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Publishers Weekly
In Allen's picture book debut, a studious boy who loves maps works in a charming tree-house studio, drawing "cities with their grid-like lines and countries with their squiggly borders." Soon, a girl appears with a request for a personalized map of "the perfect place," describing a location that's "toes-in-the-sand, wrapped-up-in-a-towel warm." When his drawings and knowledge of the globe don't align with her variable vision ("It's a place where I can zip like a dragonfly"), she leads him through their neighborhood, showing him its familiar features through new eyes. Working in warm, loose gouache and pencil in muted greens and earth tones, Karas (A Hat for Mrs. Goldman) plots their journey, following the path of the duo, who read as white, from library to bakery to playground to home, as the boy sees how the girl's words describe the world he already knows, and make it new. A notable feature of this telling is the way authority shifts from the boy--whose rational take makes the girl's expanding requests seem capricious--to the girl, who shows the boy another way to look at the world. Back matter defines maps and suggests activities. Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Erzsi Deak. Hen&Ink Literary. Illustrator's agent: Brenda Bowen, Book Group. (July)
Copyright 2022 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.JUV028000 - Juvenile Fiction | Mysteries, Espionage, & Detective Stories
JUV068000 - Juvenile Fiction | Travel
Maps
