“The Way Back Home” by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel, 9780399250743, $16.99, 32
pages, ages 4 to 8)
Irish children’s writer and illustrator Oliver Jeffers is creator of last
year’s fantastic picture book
The Incredible
Book-Eating Boy, a story about a kid who acquires a taste for books
and learning and who eventually decides that reading a good book is even
better than eating one.
Jeffers’s brand-new picture book is the soft and whimsical “The Way Back
Home,” a story of friendship and cooperation between two very different
youngsters. The first is a young Earth boy who discovers an airplane in his
closet and sets off on a flight to the moon, where he promptly runs out of
gas. The second is an antennae-headed green Martian boy whose flying saucer
is having engine trouble.
Both boys end up stranded on the moon and are a little scared of each other
at first, but they soon realize that each needs the other’s help to get his
flying machine back in the sky. (Jeffers includes an adorable page of the
two conversing in hand gestures and pantomime, which you really need to see
for yourself. It’s priceless.) Working together, they hatch a daring plan:
the Earth boy will parachute down to Earth, and once he’s gathered the
supplies they need, the Martian boy will let down a rope and haul him back
up to the moon. It’s cooperation!
After the airplane’s fuel tank has been filled and the flying saucer’s
engine has been patched with a wrench and a rubber band, both boys go their
separate ways back home. Still, they’ve learned to be friends, and they
continue to keep in touch using a set of high-powered Martian
walkie-talkies.
Review by
Mark David Bradshaw, April 16, 2008
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