The Only Child

The Only Child

Illustrator: Guojing

Genre: Fantasy and Science Fiction

Grade Level: Pre-k to 4^th grade

A wordless book that speaks so much just by its sheer illustration. The book design is well planned. The book has a dust cover that conceals a plain cover. The endpapers are illustrated, a sepia print paper with a patch of snow. As you turn the paper, the lens zooms out revealing more patches of snow and some tree branches. After the acknowledgment page is an author’s note that reveals that the book is based on her childhood. But even if you skip the author’s note, you get the gist of what the story is about just looking through the illustration

The illustration is marvelous. It is all black and white with a hint of sepia. It looks like she used chalk and charcoal with a lot of shading. Some of the pages have panels like graphic novels while some of the pages are dedicated solely to one illustration. The panels are good for a wordless storybook as it lets the reader follow exactly where the illustrator want. I would not really call it a realistic illustration but it certainly gives that expression. The emotion is shown in the book is amazing. You really feel for the little girl when she is happy, sad, scared and hopeful.

The story starts with a little girl kissing her mother goodbye as she is left home to entertain herself. She eats, plays and watches TV but none of it makes her happy. She takes out the photo album where she looks at the photo of her grandmother. She decides to set for adventure to see her grandmother on a cold snowy day. She takes the bus but falls asleep and gets lost. She is lonely and horrified since she is lost. She falls asleep in a middle of the woods where a large deer pick her up and takes her up in the cloud to meet his friends. The little girl soon forgets she is lost. While she is playing on the cloud, the deer goes to find her grandma’s house. The deer come back to pick the little girl up so she could go to her grandma place. The little girl hugs the deer goodbye and shed a little tear. She runs off to her grandma and parents who are anxiously waiting for her. The little girl embraces on her mothers’ arms and waves goodbye as the deer watches. At the end, as the little girl is falling asleep she holds her little wooden deer toy which comes to life and watches her sleep.

Thoughts: 

This story really touched my heart because I have experienced this kind of situation. Well not that any deer came to life and took me to the cloud. That would have been amazing! I read the authors note at the very end but since I love illustration so I was quite keen on just looking through the book. Even without reading the authors note, you know what the story is about. The story also kind of reminded me of Alice in Wonderland. A little girl lost then gets involved in a wild adventure so similar plot. This story will be well received by Pre-K students since the little girl looks like she is about three years old so they might put themselves in the shoes of the little girl. The students can learn to express themselves and learning vocabulary to explain how they are feeling. A fabulous book!