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PICTURE BOOKS
Van den Ende, Peter

The Wanderer

96 pp. | Levine Querido/Em Querido | October, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-64614-017-6 $21.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-1-64614-070-1 $21.99
(2) K-3 Two figures, one fully human, the other a more fanciful humanoid figure with horns (or is it a crescent moon bisecting its head?), fold a paper boat and launch it from their ship. The boat travels from the middle of the Pacific Ocean down along the coasts of North and South America, north past Africa until it makes land in Europe (so indicated on the endpapers). Although elements of the journey seem familiar, and the world map sets the story in the known world, this is an entirely wondrous--and wordless--trip. The paper boat passes sea turtles that spout like whales, fish with human hands, and harlequin seahorses. Like Escher's paintings, Van Allsburg's images in Ben's Dream, or Shaun Tan's otherworlds, Van den Ende's intricate pen-and-ink creations are both familiar and fantastical. The surreal, precise illustrations are full of unexpected humor (such as a whale balancing a pipe in its blowhole) as well as tension. First published in the Netherlands, Van den Ende's sophisticated picture book leaves viewers with a sense of the literal and figurative ebb and flow of life. The little paper boat meets adversity in the form of dangerous waves and ominous creatures, but gets help from equally unexpected sources. It is fragile--readers know, logically, that a paper boat cannot survive life in the ocean--but indeed it does.
Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2020

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