  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 09/01/2019 *Starred Review* Two children, accompanied by their father, wave as their mother sets off to travel 300 miles down the Hudson River on her solitary adventure. In the evenings, the woman writes and draws in her sketchbook, detailing her exploits after setting up camp for the night. Caldecott Honor Book creator Cooper offers short descriptive paragraphs that encapsulate the striking beauty and harrowing challenges she encounters. “The moon climbs up among the stars. She is alone, but not. The river stays beside her, mumbling to her and to itself all through the night.” Evocative watercolor illustrations show differing perspectives and vary from tiny vignettes to large double-spread paintings offering many details while remaining soft-edged. The woman paddles by numerous animals including otters, a bear cub, cows, a moose, and an eagle. She passes under various types of bridges on her journey and notices many different kinds of boats in New York Harbor. Though she faces many challenging situations—rapids in a narrowing of the river, biting black flies, a strong wind that capsizes her canoe, and a tugboat that creates waves that endanger her and her small vessel—she survives them all to rejoin her family at home. An author's note, sources, and information about the river round out this beautiful book. - Copyright 2019 Booklist. School Library Journal - 11/01/2019 PreS-Gr 3—Cooper loves to take children on experiential journeys, which he did so expertly in titles such as Train, Farm, and Beach. This time the excursion is on a mighty river—the Hudson—and the conveyance is a canoe. The book opens with a woman—the solo traveler—waving goodbye to her family and setting off from the headwaters of the river in the Adironacks on a 300-mile trek to New York Harbor. Such an ambitious outing takes extensive training and careful planning, but this woman is up to the task and there's no better way of appreciating the river ecosystem than this kind of up-close and intensely personal observation. Cooper captures it all in his gloriously expansive and fluid pencil and watercolor artwork in vignettes and full-bleed spreads. The woman's days consist largely of "paddling, sketching, eating, camping, and paddling again." She spots a variety of wildlife—moose, otters, mergansers, eagles, seals—crashes through a series of rapids, portages around a dam, and follows the locks at a waterfall. With each day's progress downriver, the countryside shifts from farmland to villages and larger towns. The woman has to think fast, takes her lumps in a squall, and paddles on until she reaches the city, and reunites with her family. Beyond her bragging rights, she has exhilarating stories to share and fond memories to hold onto, until her next adventure. VERDICT A marvelous vehicle for nature lovers, armchair travelers, and aspiring boaters and explorers.—Luann Toth, School Library Journal - Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
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