Oliver Finds His Way - Hardcover

Phyllis Root

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0744585422 ISBN 13: 9780744585421

Publisher: Walker Books Ltd, 2002

Synopsis

While Mother Bear hangs out the washing and Father Bear rakes the leaves, Oliver chases a big yellow leaf to the edge of the woods. Oliver stops, nothing is familiar. Mother Bear? Father Bear? he calls, no answer, he is lost! Can he find enough courage not to panic and find his way home?

About this title

About the Author

Phyllis Root, the author of several award-winning books for children, lives
in Minnesota with her two daughters. About the inspiration for OLIVER FINDS HIS WAY, Phyllis Root recounts this anecdote from her childhood: "Once when I was very young, the legs I thought were my mother’s in a crowd turned out to belong to a stranger. My mother was lost. I hollered really loud, just like Oliver, and my mother found me."

Christopher Denise grew up in New England, and is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. He was drawn to the story of Oliver because, he says, "I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to draw scenes of New England in the fall - bright blue skies, brilliant displays of red, yellow, and purple, cool crisp air, long visits to my grandparents’ house and, best of all, playing in the leaves." Christopher Denise’s first picture book was published in 1994, and since then he has illustrated seven more, including A REDWALL WINTER'S TALE by Brian Jacques.

From Publishers Weekly

Root (What Baby Wants) uses a minimum of text and Denise (The Fool of the World) alternates close-up portraits with panoramic view to bring a fresh poignancy to the familiar theme of a child so caught up in play that he suddenly finds himself lost and alone. On a gorgeous autumn day, while Mama and Papa tend to chores, Oliver the bear cub follows the airborne path of a big yellow leaf. In nearly cinematic views framed in a clean white border, the artist shows the cub getting farther from home. Before he knows it, Oliver is at the edge of the woods. With economic, staccato-rhythm prose ("Oliver looks for the leaf./ No leaf./ Oliver looks for the house./ No house"), Root evokes the flashes of realization that constitute a child's thought process. Denise's gold-toned charcoal and pastel pictures never distort the landscape into something frightening. The woods where Oliver finds himself may be shadowy, but glimpses of comforting blue sky show through the trees, and a squirrel and bunny who watch Oliver are far from threatening. Denise gets terrific emotional mileage from the interplay of Oliver's tiny eyes, huge head and clown-like snout; readers will have no trouble empathizing with his plight. And when Oliver figures out that he can find his way back through call-and-response roars with his parents, youngsters will cheer his noisy ingenuity, too. Ages 3-6.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0744585422
• ISBN 13: 9780744585421
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 33