The child steps into an urban mural, walks along a winding country road through broad rural landscapes and scary woods, climbs a rugged metaphorical mountain, then comes to stand at last, Little Prince–like, on a tiny blue and green planet. But I will always be there when you land.” Narrator: “What if the world around us is filled with hate?” Road: “Lead it to love.” Narrator: “What if I feel stuck?” Road: “Keep going.” De Moyencourt illustrates this colloquy with luminous scenes of a small, brown-skinned child, face turned away from viewers so all they see is a mop of blond curls. “Everyone falls at some point, said the Road. The Road’s dialogue and the narration are set in a chunky, sans-serif type with no quotation marks, so the one flows into the other confusingly. “What if I fall?” worries the narrator in a stylized, faux hand-lettered type Wade’s Instagram followers will recognize.
The Road’s twice-iterated response-“Be a leader and find out”-bookends a dialogue in which a traveler’s anxieties are answered by platitudes. Opening by asking readers, “Have you ever wanted to go in a different direction,” the unnamed narrator describes having such a feeling and then witnessing the appearance of a new road “almost as if it were magic.” “Where do you lead?” the narrator asks. The narrator’s buoyancy and quick recovery save this from turning into a dreary life lesson.įrom an artist, poet, and Instagram celebrity, a pep talk for all who question where a new road might lead. Executed on spacious expanses of white or rich tan, they depict the ebullient child engaged in all sorts of delicious mayhem. She can also make things (well, cupcakes at least) disappear and breathe under water-in a tub scene featuring a rib-tickling bit of mooning-as well as like special “powers.” But despite previous spills aplenty, she declares with a childlike sense of permanence that her abilities are “Gone! Finished!” after some swooping on the end of a rope in the yard one day ends with a SPLAT! They don’t vanish for long though, as when Mom rushes out with a “magic kiss” that makes most of the hurt go away, the child concludes that she “has superpowers too!” The illustrations will clue young readers in immediately that any powers here (aside, of course, from Mom’s) are strictly in her head, creating a tension between text and subtext that, oddly, both celebrates and undercuts this kind of imaginary play. Sporting a black mask throughout in the simple crayon drawings, the self-confident young narrator describes how she learned to fly by launching herself from the bed.
In an import that is high on zest, a child and her blithe conviction that she has superpowers both take an abrupt tumble.
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