Oliver Finds His Way

"The happy ending is totally satisfying and will leave readers smiling."
— SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review)

Oliver is so intent on following a blowing autumn leaf that he doesn’t even notice that he's lost his way. All alone at the edge of the woods, he starts to cry. He cries and cries — but he is still lost. And so he rubs his nose and tries to think. . . . With warmth, humor, and faith in the power of pluck, Phyllis Root quietly captures a big, defining moment in the world of a small child.

Publishers Weekly

Root (What Baby Wants) uses a minimum of text and Denise (The Fool of the World) alternates close-up portraits with panoramic view to bring a fresh poignancy to the familiar theme of a child so caught up in play that he suddenly finds himself lost and alone. On a gorgeous autumn day, while Mama and Papa tend to chores, Oliver the bear cub follows the airborne path of a big yellow leaf. In nearly cinematic views framed in a clean white border, the artist shows the cub getting farther from home. Before he knows it, Oliver is at the edge of the woods. With economic, staccato-rhythm prose ("Oliver looks for the leaf./ No leaf./ Oliver looks for the house./ No house"), Root evokes the flashes of realization that constitute a child's thought process. Denise's gold-toned charcoal and pastel pictures never distort the landscape into something frightening. The woods where Oliver finds himself may be shadowy, but glimpses of comforting blue sky show through the trees, and a squirrel and bunny who watch Oliver are far from threatening. Denise gets terrific emotional mileage from the interplay of Oliver's tiny eyes, huge head and clown-like snout; readers will have no trouble empathizing with his plight. And when Oliver figures out that he can find his way back through call-and-response roars with his parents, youngsters will cheer his noisy ingenuity, too. Ages 3-6. (Sept.)

Phyllis Root, the author of several award-winning books for children, lives in Minnesota with her two daughters. About the inspiration for OLIVER FINDS HIS WAY, Phyllis Root recounts this anecdote from her childhood: "Once when I was very young, the legs I thought were my mother’s in a crowd turned out to belong to a stranger. My mother was lost. I hollered really loud, just like Oliver, and my mother found me."

Christopher Denise grew up in New England, and is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. He was drawn to the story of Oliver because, he says, "I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to draw scenes of New England in the fall - bright blue skies, brilliant displays of red, yellow, and purple, cool crisp air, long visits to my grandparents’ house and, best of all, playing in the leaves." Christopher Denise’s first picture book was published in 1994, and since then he has illustrated seven more, including A REDWALL WINTER'S TALE by Brian Jacques.