Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/are-we-there-yet-celebrating-storytelling-in-childrens-books/5023647/
When our children were young, we’d often take them on short hikes in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. One of them would fly eagerly ahead of us on the trail; the other needed a bit more encouragement. She and her patient daddy passed the time by telling each other stories about the fairy families they imagined living under the leaves and mushrooms along the path. What were they doing now? What were their names? Would they catch a glimpse of one? She was never the first to the top of the mountain, but she remains our child who loves sharing the woods with her own family.
Perhaps one of the best venues for inventive storytelling is that long, long, seemingly unending trip in the car to Grandma’s house. Dan Santat, who received the Caldecott medal last year for The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, takes his bored passenger in Are We There Yet? on a time journey upside down and backwards through the American West, the piratical Caribbean, the Roman Coliseum, and finally to the time of the dinosaurs. When his story makes an abrupt u-turn into the future, our hero nearly misses the party, but don’t worry! Everyone finally ends up at ...