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Dear Wild Child by Wallace J. Nichols and Wallace Grayce Nichols, illustrated by Drew Beckmeyer

October 11, 2022 by

Source: Media Masters Publicity
Hardcover, 32 pgs.
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Dear Wild Child: You Carry Your Home Inside You by Wallace J. Nichols and Dr. Wallace Grayce Nichols, illustrated by Drew Beckmeyer, is based on a letter from a father to a grown daughter after the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fires destroyed her childhood home on the Slow Coast north of Santa Cruz, California, following a brilliant lightning storm.

The book opens before the birth of the child in the story, as the parents are planning and designing their home in the redwoods. The illustration of the house as a patchwork of trees is beautiful and abstract. Opening up to the inside of the home, it’s cozy and filled with books and music and love. Like the strength of the trees making up the floors and walls of the house, the young girl grows stronger each day, learning to sing, and enjoy nature, and explore all that the woods has.

Beckmeyer lends his skills as an imaginative artist with crayons (or at least it gives that child-like impression). His illustrations are deep and textured, resembling the crayon wax that is left behind on the page when a child colors. This effect ensures readers will see the trees as three-dimensional and coarse with bark.

Dear Wild Child: You Carry Your Home Inside You by Wallace J. Nichols and Dr. Wallace Grayce Nichols, illustrated by Drew Beckmeyer, shares the beauty of a home filled with love, and though it may no longer exist in physical form, all of that love and those memories are carried inside that “wild child.” While loss can be extremely devastating, this books illustrates the beauty of memory and love, as well as that beauty in destructive forces.

RATING: Cinquain

***To help those communities impacted by these destructive wildfires, please consider helping After the Fire.***

About the Authors and Illustrator:

Wallace Grayce Nichols is a student of sustainable design, problem solver, and water lover. Her father, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols, is a marine biologist and the author of the bestselling book Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do. Home is the slow coast of California. Drew Beckmeyer is a fine artist, illustrator, and elementary school teacher. He lives in Northern California.
Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2022, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Mailbox Monday #703

October 10, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Thank you to Velvet for stepping in when Mailbox Monday needed another host.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s What I Received:

Dear Wild Child by Wallace J. Nichols and Wallace Grayce Nichols, illustrated by Drew Beckmeyer from Media Masters Publicity.

A story inspired by a letter from a father to his daughter about wildfire, loss, and learning that we carry our homes inside us wherever we go

In the shade of ancient redwood trees, by a creek, not far from the ocean, a father builds a house for his newborn daughter, where she grows up wild and strong in their coastal canyon home. When a wildfire takes back their beloved house, he writes his now-grown daughter a letter telling her it’s gone. Inspired by the real letter the author wrote his daughter, this poignant story—written together by father and daughter—joyfully declares that a home is more than just wood and stone; it is made of love and can never be taken away. You carry home with you wherever you go.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Room of Your Own by Beth Kephart, Illustrated by Julia Breckenreid

August 16, 2022 by

Source: Purchased
Hardcover, 32 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

A Room of Your Own by Beth Kephart, illustrated by Julia Breckenreid, is a gorgeous book that explores all the different kinds of room we can find in our lives for creativity. Those rooms can be in the house, in the garden, in a barn, in a bath tub, in a cabinet, in a tree, under the bed, or even simply in the pages of a book.

Kephart was inspired by Virginia Woolf’s essay, A Room of One’s Own, to write this children’s picture book, which is beautifully illustrated by Breckenreid. The images are colorful and alive. Readers follow Virginia from her home and into the gardens where the steel sky gives way to blue. She sits and thinks and dreams and then comes the question for the reader: “Where do you go to think, to dream, to be?”

There’s an illustrated imagining of what those places could be and maybe are for many. And the illustrations bring these places to life and demonstrate that each place is important for each person and that no two places are alike, but all are vital for self, imagination, and more. Some of the rooms are not even rooms at all, but moments between action or in action. Below is my favorite illustration in the entire book:

A Room of Your Own by Beth Kephart, illustrated by Julia Breckenreid, is a delight, and I love that Virginia Woolf is here in these pages, but that the story gives way to the reader and explores the places they could have that are all their own.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of three dozen books in multiple genres and an award-winning teacher at the University of Pennsylvania. Her new memoir in essays is Wife | Daughter | Self (Forest Avenue Press). Her new craft book is We Are the Words: The Master Memoir Class, from which this essay was adapted. More at bethkephartbooks.com.

Filed Under: children's fiction, purchased, Read in 2022, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Mailbox Monday #695

August 15, 2022 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Velvet, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

A Room of Your Own by Beth Kephart, illustrated by Julia Breckenreid, which I purchased.

A picture book about the places we go to create, inspired by Virginia Woolf and her noted essay

Sometimes Virginia Woolf wrote her stories in a garden shed. Sometimes she wrote them among stacks of books in a cool basement. And you? Where do you go to think, to dream, to be? The shade beneath a tall tree? The brick step on a city stoop? The cozy spot beneath the kitchen table? Or inside the night’s deep dark? Not all rooms require four walls and a roof. Inspired by the writer Virginia Woolf and her celebrated essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” A Room of Your Own is about the importance of claiming a space for oneself.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , ,