"The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane"
by Kate DeCamillo
Quite simply the finest children's book I've ever read. Period. Phenomenal story, breathtaking artwork, extravagant print-production. So good I would recommend this story to anyone, whether or not they have kids. Like so many other children's stories (The Velveteen Rabbit leaps to mind), this tale is centered around the "life" of a toy, but it is so much more. An adventure, or more accurately a mis-adventure, but mostly an emotional journey.
I read this to Kid after we gave it to her for Easter, and I could hardly put it down. There are moments in this story I thought were a bit too much for her five-year-old sensibilities, but they were easily "edited" in my recitation. I think this story really benefits from being read aloud to a child, but an older kid would love to read it to themselves as well.
Here is the NY Times Book Review—but don't read the review, they give FAR too much of the story away, but along the sidebar there is a link to read, or listen to the audiobook version of the first chapter.
UPDATE: A blogger's review that does a better job than I describing the wonder of this story. ALERT: Unlike the NYT review no details are revealed, but certain things are revealed here, so if you like to go into a story totally cold, stop reading now and just go get the book...
NOTE: I bumped this back to the top, because I didn't want another Hillary post above the fold for the next 18 hours...so sue me.
4 comments:
A children's book that makes you cry? Why didn't you say so sooner? I'm going on Amazon right now.
so this is most appropriate for kids kid's age? 5ish?
Age 5 minimum. The review mentions ages 4-9 as the sweet spot for this book, but I breezed past a couple of things for Kid—though she is particularly sensitive...
There is loss and grief that is too much for the 'Bud (or the Ambassador, Deb) right now, but it deserves a spot on the shelf for later.
Now that I think about it, some of that stuff will go over a younger kid's head, but I think they'll get more out of the story at 5 or 6.
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