makes a secret map.”
(Click spread to enlarge)
Meg Fleming’s meditative Wondering Around (Beach Lane, May 2022), illustrated by Richard Jones, is an ode to wondering at, observing, and engaging with the natural world and features children who “wander on the outside … and wonder on the in.”
In richly colored acrylic illustrations (remember his illustrations for this year’s Marshmallow Clouds?), Richard Jones depicts wide-eyed children taking it all in — whether it’s looking closely underneath a rock (where “tiny feet become a street” and an insect world forms a “city block”), looking out of an apartment window at a growing storm, or wondering at the life that brims alongside a pond or in a snowy forest. The book’s mood shifts slightly (and delightfully) throughout these 48 pages — always wondrous but sometimes playful (a squirrel, a mouse, a frog with a bowtie, and a snail having a tea party behind a rock), sometimes mysterious (a child isn’t sure she’ll stick around the forest when she sees a creature she is unsure about but that ends up being a deer), and sometimes fantastical (a child rides a tiger). We see children through the seasons, and Jones fills these pages with bursts of color. Fleming’s rhyming text flows beautifully: “Wonder way up branches. / At all the wings that fly. / A leaf bouquet says swip, swip, sway. / Hello, forever sky.”
In the end, the children take their perceptions and put them to paper: “Wonder out a pencil. / Or paint or stick or brush. / A thought. A shape. A great escape that settles in a hush.” This deep breath of a book can usher in contemplation and a place for wonder in a child’s otherwise hectic day.
Here are some spreads. …
A storm. A flash. A clap.”
(Click spread to enlarge)
A nest. A bog. A trail.”
(Click spread to enlarge)
Could that be someone’s tail?”
(Click spread to enlarge)
A swoopy loop of jade.”
(Click spread to enlarge)
Here comes the deep parade!”
(Click spread to enlarge)
WONDERING AROUND. Text copyright © 2022 by Meg Fleming. Illustrations © 2022 by Richard Jones and reproduced by permission of the publisher, Beach Lane Books, New York.
Note for any new readers: 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.
What a week. I’m with Liz:
I have two young adult daughters, and I could not be more ashamed of, enraged by, or terrified about the world we are handing them.
— Liz Garton Scanlon (@LGartonScanlon) June 24, 2022
I typed these kicks before hearing the Roe news (because I’ll be out of town for part of the weekend), but I’m coming back here to acknowledge … I dunno … the horror. I don’t know what to say, other than: Let’s keep fighting.
Here are the kicks I had typed earlier:
1) Taika Waititi’s facial expressions:
everyone just has to see Taika’s reaction to this question, he’s iconic 😂 #TaikaWaititi pic.twitter.com/oNdGNJckAA
— Oona | queer as pirates 🏴☠️🏳️🌈 (@queeraspirates) June 23, 2022
2) Plans to visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.
3) Good, strong coffee during a week with weird work hours.
4) Pip Williams’s The Dictionary of Lost Words.
5) Kasey Musgrave’s cover of “Can’t Help Falliing in Love.”
6) Reading a Sarah Gailey novel out loud to my daughters.
7) The birdsong I could hear from a colleague’s window during a Zoom call.
BONUS: Look at this post’s title. Eight hundred weeks of kickin’. Whoa.
What are YOUR kicks this week?
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