SATA

SATA

Becker, Aaron

ENTRY TYPE:

WORK TITLE: THE TREE AND THE RIVER
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.storybreathing.com
CITY: Amherst
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: SATA 373

 

RESEARCHER NOTES:

PERSONAL

Born 1974, in Baltimore, MD; married Darci Palmquist; children: Josephine.

EDUCATION:

Pomona College, degree, 1996; attended Art Center College of Design.

ADDRESS

  • Home - Amherst, MA.
  • Agent - Linda Pratt, Wernick & Pratt Agency; info@wernickpratt.com.

CAREER

Author and illustrator. Former graphic designer based in San Francisco, CA. Presenter at schools and libraries.

AWARDS:

Caldecott Honor Book selection, 2014, for Journey.

WRITINGS

  • SELF-ILLUSTRATED; EXCEPT AS NOTED
  • Journey, Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2013
  • Quest, Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2014
  • Return, Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2016
  • A Stone for Sascha, Candlewick Press (Somverville, MA), 2018
  • You Are Light, Candlewick Studio, (Somerville, MA), 2019
  • My Favorite Color: I Can Only Pick One?, Candlewick (Somerville, MA), 2020
  • (Illustrator) Marcie Colleen, Survivor Tree, Little, Brown and Company (New York, NY), 2021
  • ,
  • ,

Author of a blog.

SIDELIGHTS

Aaron Becker is the author-illustrator of Journey, a Caldecott Medal honoree that shares a wordless story in the imaginatively detailed artwork that has become Becker’s stylistic signature. Appraising Becker’s work, which also includes the companion stories Quest and Return, critics have grouped him with such picture-book luminaries as Maurice Sendak and Crockett Johnson. “Like many American boys born in the wake of the Apollo missions, I decided early on I would be an astronaut,” Becker wrote in an autobiographical statement found on his website. However, he added, “At some point, I surmised that a career in actual space travel required military training, and this seemed like a lot of work.” Instead he decided to explore the world of his imagination through drawing.

A native of Maryland, Becker earned a degree in media studies at Pomona College in California. Describing his foray into children’s literature, he explained to Publishers Weekly contributor Antonia Saxon that he approached the market with diligence, attending conferences and identifying his weaknesses. “I didn’t know how to draw,” he admitted, so he took graphic-design courses at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design. The skills he gained helped Becker land lucrative work in the animated film industry. The manuscript of his first children’s picture book attracted the interest of a book editor he had met at a writer’s conference over a decade earlier.

In the wordless Journey a young artist draws herself into increasingly fantastical realms with a single red permanent-ink marker pen. She marvels at a canal-crossed city of castles from a red boat, goes aloft on a red airship, and escapes perilous situations by quickly drawing herself out of them with the help of another red-tinted conveyance. “This captivating wordless story has all the elements of a classic adventure: unknown lands, death-defying stunts, and a plucky lead,” enthused School Library Journal reviewer Kiera Parrott. Jesse Karp, critiquing Journey in Booklist, also delivered high praise. “Becker’s background in movie animation is apparent in his sense of pace, motion, and action,” Karp asserted.

Becker continued to chronicle the saga of his intrepid artist/explorer in Quest, this time pairing his nameless heroine with a like-minded neighbor boy who brings his own artistic gifts to their adventure. “When I was editing Journey, the one thing I didn’t have room for was a resolution for the girl’s initial (and significant) disconnect with her family,” Becker explained in an interview appearing on the website Design of the Picture Book. “Instead, she finds a way out of her loneliness through her imagination and the adventures and friends she makes along the way. This felt closer to life to me; that the things we desire deep down don’t always pan out the way we might hope.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor described the sequel as “breathtaking in scope” and “a wordless testament to the power of not just imagination, but art itself; picture books rarely feel this epic.” Also reviewing Quest, School Library Journal critic Wendy Lukehart expressed delight over the landscapes Becker creates for his two young travelers, characterizing them as “the type of exotic settings that children associate with potential danger and requisite cleverness and courage.”

Becker concludes his wordless trilogy with Return, in which a lonely girl—failing to get the attention of her busy artist father—travels into a fantasy world (with the help of her red crayon) for companionship and adventure. She explores kingdoms and empires, sees castles and exotic creatures, returning to her magical world to meet up again with her friends from earlier adventures, the boy and the king. Her father, meanwhile, is sad that he has been ignoring her and arrives in the fantasy world just in time to save his daughter from an enemy warrior.

“That the father is redeemed by entering his daughter’s kingdom and mastering its rules gives the story a sense of moral justice,” noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer, who added: “Becker’s creation is a gift to his readers—one they’ll want to save for their own children.” Further praise came from Nicole Lamy, writing in the New York Times Book Review. Lamy remarked: “ Return offers straight shots of pleasure. The rich jewel-tone world Becker has created in pen and ink and watercolor illustrations is richly cinematic. And in a moving turn, father and daughter take some of that warmth and color back home. On the last page their relationship gets a lift as they fly the red kite together.” Likewise, a Kirkus Reviews critic concluded: “A fantastic final leg to a reading journey that altered, expanded, and enriched the landscape of children’s literature—and surely many young people’s lives.”

In an interview with Horn Book contributor Lolly Robinson, Becker commented on whether the father in the story was himself: “In a sense, yes. But I think I relate more to the girl in the book. Much of my childhood was spent inside worlds that existed only in my imagination. The father in Return is modeled after my own dad. I would have loved for him to have met me on the other side of my secret red door.”

 

Becker introduces a new protagonist in another wordless picture book, A Stone for Sascha. The story begins as a family—two parents and two children—bury their much-loved dog Sascha. “The young daughter picks and lays golden flowers on top of the rock that marks Sascha’s grave,” wrote Maryann Owen in Booklist. Then the family leaves home for a beach vacation, and the daughter casts a stone into the sea as she stands under a star-spangled night sky. At that point Becker shifts the action and shows, ages before, a meteorite approaching the earth. Eons later a gold-colored portion of the meteorite is uncovered by people, who carve it into the shape of an obelisk. As centuries pass, the stone is carved and recarved into a variety of forms: a religious statue, the keystone of a bridge, incorporated into a box, and finally carried off to sea, where the ship carrying it sinks. The daughter finds it on the beach and carries it home, where it is used to mark Sascha’s grave. “Even more epic than his Journey trilogy,” said Julie Danielson in Horn Book, “this is a story that provides new details and new understandings with multiple viewings.”

Critics found A Stone for Sascha just as enthralling as the Journey trilogy. According to a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “Readers will be enticed to explore this book’s beautiful, dreamlike pictures, and the message of healing will comfort many who have known loss.” “Combining a sensitive story line with high adventure and dramatic settings,” noted Wendy Lukehart in School Library Journal, “this will inspire a variety of readers to envision histories.” “Remnants of ancient history, readers will realize, may lie very close at hand,” observed a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “and … perhaps nothing is ever truly lost.”

In his 2019 work, You Are Light, Becker “celebrates life-sustaining light in [an] unusual board book,” according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Using only a few words, Becker leads young and older readers alike into the wonders of light, employing twelve die-cut circles surrounding a yellow abstract sun. Each of the holes contains colored translucent insets that interact and change colors as the reader holds the book up to the light. The text, meanwhile, offers “lyrical ponderings on the sun’s effects on the water cycle and growing seasons,” as a Kirkus Reviews critic commented. The critic added: “This book is demanding of its readers, but those who take the time are in for a treat. A well-crafted art book with emotional resonance.” Similar praise was offered by the Publishers Weekly reviewer who concluded: “Becker’s artful board book offers opportunities for tactile play and deeper contemplation.”

With his 2020 work, My Favorite Color: I Can Only Pick One?, Becker continues his examination of light and color, again employing translucent vinyl inserts which blend colors. Various colors are selected as possible favorites, and Becker demonstrates how each has a wide range of hues and how they can blend to form yet another color. The array of colors offers a spectrum resembling clouds, the sea, and fruit, making it virtually impossible for young readers to pick just one favorite color. “No matter what your favorite color, this rainbow ode is sure to brighten your day,” remarked a Kirkus Reviews critic who added: “A lively rumination on the merits of different colors.” Similarly, Booklist reviewer Ronny Khuri dubbed My Favorite Color “another innovative approach to color primers.” Khuri concluded: “The basic premise—picking your favorite color—is enough to engage any toddler or preschool audience, but the mind-boggling depth of beauty and bookmaking ingenuity puts this offering on another level.”

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

  • Booklist, August 1, 2013, Jesse Karp, review of Journey, p. 74; July 1, 2014, Jesse Karp, review of Quest, p. 88; June 1, 2016, Jesse Karp, review of Return, p. 120; March 1, 2018, Maryann Owen, review of A Stone for Sascha, p. 57; May 15, 2020, Ronny Khuri, review of My Favorite Color: I Can Only Pick One?, p. 51.

  • BookPage, September, 2014, “Meet Aaron Becker,” p. 31.

  • Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, October, 2013, review of Journey, p. 75; September, 2014, Deborah Stevenson, review of Quest, p. 8.

  • Horn Book, September-October, 2013, Kathleen T. Horning, review of Journey, p. 71; September-October, 2014, Lolly Robinson, review of Quest, p. 75; September-October, 2016, Lolly Robinson, review of Return, p. 77; May-June, 2018, Julie Danielson, review of A Stone for Sascha, p. 102.

  • Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2013, review of Journey; July 1, 2014, review of Quest; May 15, 2016, review of Return; March 15, 2018, review of A Stone for Sascha; February 15, 2019, review of You Are Light; August 15, 2020, review of My Favorite Color.

  • New York Times Book Review, August 29, 2016, Lamy Nicole, review of Return, p. 24.

  • Publishers Weekly, May 20, 2013, review of Journey, p. 57; December 23, 2013, author profile, p. 17; May 19, 2014, review of Quest, p. 67; December 2, 2016, review of Return, p. 17; March 12, 2018, review of A Stone for Sascha, p. 57; January 21, 2019, review of Your Are Light, p. 81.

  • School Librarian, winter, 2014, Jane Doonan, review of Quest, p. 217.

  • School Library Journal, July, 2013, Kiera Parrott, review of Journey, p. 55; July, 2014, Wendy Lukehart, review of Quest, p. 62; April, 2018, Wendy Lukehart, review of A Stone for Sascha, p. 102.

ONLINE

  • Aaron Becker website, http://www.storybreathing.com (April 29, 2021), author profile.

  • Design of the Picture Book, http://www.designofthepicturebook.com/ (October 3, 2017), “The Journey Trilogy.”

  • HUFFPOST, https://www.huffpost.com/ (December 6, 2017), “5 Things You May Not Know about Aaron Becker.”*

1. The tree and the river LCCN 2022936854 Type of material Book Personal name Becker, Aaron, author. Main title The tree and the river / Aaron Becker. Published/Produced Somerville : Candlewick Press, 2023. Projected pub date 2312 Description pages cm ISBN 9781536223293 (hardback) Item not available at the Library. Why not? 2. One sky LCCN 2021953125 Type of material Book Personal name Becker, Aaron, author. Main title One sky / Aaron Becker. Published/Produced Somerville : Candlewick Press, 2022. Projected pub date 2212 Description pages cm ISBN 9781536225365 (board) Item not available at the Library. Why not?
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    Aaron Becker

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    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    Aaron Becker
    Aaron Becker, Author and Illustrator, aaron becker.jpg
    Born 1974
    Baltimore, Maryland, USA
    Occupation Illustrator, Writer
    Nationality American
    Alma mater Pomona College
    Genre Children's literature, picture books
    Notable works Journey, Quest
    Notable awards Caldecott Honor (2014)
    Website
    www.storybreathing.com
    Aaron Becker (born 1974) is an American writer and illustrator of children's books.[1] He is best known for his wordless children's book Journey, which received positive reviews in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and a Caldecott Honor in 2014. [2]

    Quest, the second book in Becker's Journey trilogy, was among a small group of children's books praised by National Public Radio (NPR) in anticipation of the announcement of the 2015 Caldecott Award nominees. [3] Sam Juliano, in his popular Wonders in the Dark blog, also remarked on Quest's likelihood of Caldecott attention.[4]

    The final book of the trilogy, Return, was released in August 2016. Among the many publications reviewing the book were the Financial Times on 19 August 2016 and the New York Times on 26 August 2016.

    Becker published "A Stone for Sascha" in May 2018. The book was reviewed by the New York Times Book Review, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, The Boston Globe, et al.

    Prior to his children's book work, Becker illustrated scenes in children's animated films, including The Polar Express (2004), Cars (2006), Monster House (2006), Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol.

    Biography
    Becker was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Baltimore City College High School. He graduated from Pomona College in 1996, and currently lives and works in Amherst, Massachusetts.[5]

    Published works
    Journey Trilogy (Candlewick Press)
    Book 1: Journey (August 2013) ISBN 9780763660536
    Book 2: Quest (August 2014) ISBN 9780763665951
    Book 3: Return (August 2016) ISBN 9780763677305
    A Stone for Sascha (May 2018) ISBN 9780763665968

  • Aaron Becker website - https://www.storybreathing.com/

    Like many American boys born in the wake of the Apollo missions, I decided early on I would be an astronaut. My mother was an astronomy teacher at a local college in my hometown of Baltimore. She would take us along on her nighttime fieldtrips to the observatory; its musky smell relieved with the opening of its domed roof. The vastness of the starry sky was thrilling. Below, above, to the right and left – nothing but infinite space.

    At some point, I surmised that a career in actual space travel required military training, and this seemed like a lot of work. So I switched gears and started drawing pictures of outer space instead. There was palpable joy in this: creating civilizations and stories filled with a cast of characters of my own design. To be sure, these worlds were reflections of places inside of me. But more importantly, drawing was an immediate path for creating something I could manage on my own terms. These worlds were mine and mine alone. With a pad of paper and a set of markers, I could pretty much do whatever I wanted. For an eight year old confined by the limitations of his material existence, this seemed like a pretty good deal.

    Years ago, after working as a designer in San Francisco’s dot-com craze, I quit my job and headed to Monterey, California for a children’s book conference. At the time, I had a vague idea of why I thought it’d be fun to write and illustrate books. After presenting some hazy ideas to a guest editor from Candlewick Press, I left the conference content to wander. I traveled. I returned to art school and earned my chops. I worked in the Bay Area with some of my heroes in film design for nearly a decade. But eventually, the children’s book bug returned. This time, I had some real drawing skills and a much greater understanding of why these books might matter. After all, I had my own child by this time, and it was becoming clear to me that there’s no purer form of story-telling for an illustrator than creating their own book full of pictures. Luckily, children seem to like this kind of stuff. And publishers will go along with it as well if the idea is up to snuff. When my agent gave me the good news that my first book had a solid offer, the name of the editor sounded eerily familiar. It was none other than the same editor I’d met in Monterey nearly fifteen years before.

    I now live in Amherst, Massachusetts where every day, I return to that place of being a kid again, ready to fly into outer space with a ship of my own design. I’m fortunate to have a job that lets me keep doing this, and I would imagine that even in the darkest of my creative slumps, surely this must beat astronaut boot camp.

  • Hope and Feathers - https://hopeandfeathersframing.com/aaron-becker/

    THE WORLD OF AARON BECKER
    Aaron Becker is an American author and illustrator of children’s books. He is best known for his wordless picture book trilogy “Journey,” “Quest,” and “Return,” which follows the adventures of a young girl who uses a magic red crayon to explore fantastical worlds. He has also illustrated several other children’s books and worked as a designer for companies such as Google and Lucasfilm.

    He is known for his use of vibrant colors, intricate details, and imaginative world-building. His most well-known works, the “Journey” trilogy, are wordless picture books that rely entirely on the illustrations to tell the story. The books follow a young girl’s adventures in fantastical worlds, and Becker’s illustrations are incredibly detailed and immersive, with a strong sense of motion and action. In addition to his work as an author and illustrator, Becker has also worked as a designer, and his experience in design is evident in his use of color, composition, and visual storytelling. Overall, Becker’s work is highly imaginative, visually stunning, and appeals to both children and adults.

* Survivor Tree. By Marcie Colleen. Illus. by Aaron Becker. Aug. 2021.48p. Little, Brown, $18.99 (9780316487672). K-Gr. 3.973.931.

On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 tragedy comes this eloook about loss and healing. When the Twin Towers filled the sky, a Callery pear tree grew below, unnoticed through the seasons--until that fall. As workers cleared rubble from the Twin Towers' collapse, they discovered unexpected green, a bit of life amid so much destruction. Colleen's spare, lyrical text continues to describe how the tree was taken to fresh soil, where it healed for nine years before it was replanted in its original home, now the 9/11 Memorial, and became known as the Survivor Tree. Caldecott Honor-winner Becker's soft, evocative watercolor-and-colored-pencil illustrations tell another story. Readers not only watch the tree first grow, but a younger brother and an older sister play around and stroll past it over the years, until the sister walks off the page and presumably into one of the towers for work. Amid the floating debris after the collapse is a small childhood photograph of them with the tree. In the final scenes, the brother, now a husband and father, visits the 9/11 Memorial with his family. Together, they reach out to the tree and become survivors, too. A concluding note fills in more information on the Survivor Tree. A moving history and tribute to resilience.--Angela Leeper

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Leeper, Angela. "Survivor Tree." Booklist, vol. 117, no. 22, Aug. 2021, p. 47. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A689976792/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dd488d9b. Accessed 16 May 2023.

Becker, Aaron ONE SKY Candlewick Studio (Children's None) $17.99 9, 6 ISBN: 978-1-5362-2536-5

Stained glass-like cutouts depict the sky from dawn to dusk.

Caldecott Honor author/illustrator Becker takes readers on a visually striking, poetic journey through the day with the vibrant sky as the backdrop. The board book opens, "Its dawn begins in darkness," and a swirl of thick black lines and geometric cutouts scrawl across the page. The cutouts, scattered throughout, have colorful, translucent inserts. Holding them up to a light source (for most success, try a sunny window) gives these a stained-glass effect in a palette matching the page. Each cutout complements the page that it is first found on as well as the next layout, mimicking the way the sky shifts subtly throughout the day, with colors evolving and deepening but not completely vanishing. Becker's blend of hues is strategically chosen to resemble the delicate mix of blues, purples, and pinks that accompany an early morning sky. As the day progresses, there are orangey pinks, light blues, and little white patches that suggest clouds. The darkening sky at dusk reflects the morning's pinks and purples until it becomes a dark purple with white sprays of stars: night. Between Becker's poetic text, featuring satisfying alliteration ("We wonder at its wildness") and the amazing sense of movement and color, readers are treated to a feast for the ears, eyes, and imagination.

Lyrically dazzling, artistically stunning. (Board book. 2-6)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Becker, Aaron: ONE SKY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A709933099/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bda50619. Accessed 16 May 2023.

One Sky

Aaron Becker

https://www.storybreathing.com

Candlewick Studio

c/o Candlewick Press

99 Dover Street, Somerville, MA 02144

www.candlewick.com

9781536225365, $17.99, Board Book, 16pp

https://www.amazon.com/One-Sky-Aaron-Becker/dp/1536225363

Synopsis: Within the sixteen pages of this elegant board book is the entire sky. A lyrical text moves young readers through the day, from dawn to dusk, while the ink- and die-cut lines resembling stained glass arc across the pages like birds in flight. An encounter with the translucent, jewel-colored panes in this special and large sized (8.53 x 0.53 x 8.5 inches) board book offers a luminous reminder that, no matter the hour or the hue, we all dwell together under one magnificent sky.

Critique: "One Sky" by author and illustrator Aaron Becker is inherently fascinating and unique, making it an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to family, daycare center, preschool, elementary school, and community library board book collections for children age 4-8.

Editorial Note: Aaron Becker is the Caldecott Honor winning author-illustrator of the Journey trilogy and A Stone for Sascha, as well as You Are Light and My Favorite Color. There is a dedicated website for Aaron Becker at https://www.storybreathing.com

Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/cbw/index.htm
Source Citation
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"One Sky." Children's Bookwatch, Sept. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A724099723/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=104059d1. Accessed 16 May 2023.

Becker, Aaron THE TREE AND THE RIVER Candlewick (Children's None) $18.99 3, 14 ISBN: 978-1-5362-2329-3

A wordless memento mori considers our fleeting human existence in the span of a single tree's life.

Having established himself as a picture-book creator unafraid of taking the long view, Becker offers an oddly comforting look at how wars, floods, and humanity itself can pass in just a blink of an eye. For most of the book, a tree standing on a single spit of land, hugged by a river, is the focus of the story. One can gauge how much time has passed not by the tree, which ages naturally over the years, but by the civilization that grows up around it, from early settlers who build along the banks to an industrial revolution, modernity, and eventual ecological collapse. Meticulous care is taken with every detail in Becker's pencil, gouache, and digital paint illustrations, leading young readers to try to piece the story of these peoples, ancient, modern, and futuristic, over time. Yet one is ultimately left with a sense of hope. Our world may descend into chaos on occasion, but new life is always on the horizon. With its tiny people (indeed, mostly too tiny to distinguish skin color or features) and distant views of civilization, the book brings to mind some of the best of Mitsumasa Anno's titles, if Anno had been occasionally influenced by Blade Runner. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Look upon this work, ye mighty picture-book creators, and despair. A stunning accomplishment. (Picture book. 4-9)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Becker, Aaron THE TREE AND THE RIVER Candlewick (Children's None) $18.99 3, 14 ISBN: 978-1-5362-2329-3

A wordless memento mori considers our fleeting human existence in the span of a single tree's life.

Having established himself as a picture-book creator unafraid of taking the long view, Becker offers an oddly comforting look at how wars, floods, and humanity itself can pass in just a blink of an eye. For most of the book, a tree standing on a single spit of land, hugged by a river, is the focus of the story. One can gauge how much time has passed not by the tree, which ages naturally over the years, but by the civilization that grows up around it, from early settlers who build along the banks to an industrial revolution, modernity, and eventual ecological collapse. Meticulous care is taken with every detail in Becker's pencil, gouache, and digital paint illustrations, leading young readers to try to piece the story of these peoples, ancient, modern, and futuristic, over time. Yet one is ultimately left with a sense of hope. Our world may descend into chaos on occasion, but new life is always on the horizon. With its tiny people (indeed, mostly too tiny to distinguish skin color or features) and distant views of civilization, the book brings to mind some of the best of Mitsumasa Anno's titles, if Anno had been occasionally influenced by Blade Runner. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Look upon this work, ye mighty picture-book creators, and despair. A stunning accomplishment. (Picture book. 4-9)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Becker, Aaron: THE TREE AND THE RIVER." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A729072659/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=389bfc4c. Accessed 16 May 2023.

The Tree and the River

Aaron Becker. Candlewick, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-5362-2329-3

In this spectacular wordless tale that takes a long view of time's passing, Becker (Journey) spotlights a single tree's life cycle against a changing backdrop of human conflicts, technological change, and natural events. On the bank of a winding river where the light is cleat and brilliant, a young tree grows, and diminutive figures raise a structure nearby. A pastoral existence soon gives way to a fortified building on the riverbank, and humans clothed in ted and blue seem to prepare for war. A page turn reveals the results: the castle is destroyed, the tree remains, and a city grows up amid the ruins. Technology arrives, with railways and steampunk-style airships; then an industrial landscape, in which gloom pervades the atmosphere; and a futuristic, artificially illuminated night. The tree, its great limbs spreading, is languishing. Another page turn suggests cataclysm as the river runs high and the tree is almost submetged. But an acorn drops--and life persists, starting the cycle anew. In a sweeping, carefully detailed work that's visually reminiscent of Anno's Journey, Becker distills a lengthy timeline into bite-size rises and falls whose beats offer hope and solace for the long term. Ages 5-9. (Mar.)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"The Tree and the River." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 5, 30 Jan. 2023, p. 66. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A737039788/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=39a672b9. Accessed 16 May 2023.

Leeper, Angela. "Survivor Tree." Booklist, vol. 117, no. 22, Aug. 2021, p. 47. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A689976792/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=dd488d9b. Accessed 16 May 2023. "Becker, Aaron: ONE SKY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 July 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A709933099/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bda50619. Accessed 16 May 2023. "One Sky." Children's Bookwatch, Sept. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A724099723/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=104059d1. Accessed 16 May 2023. "Becker, Aaron: THE TREE AND THE RIVER." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A729072659/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=389bfc4c. Accessed 16 May 2023. "The Tree and the River." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 5, 30 Jan. 2023, p. 66. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A737039788/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=39a672b9. Accessed 16 May 2023.