Two-time Caldecott Honor artist Lane Smith (The Stinky Cheese Man; Grandpa Green) has created a playful, profoundly beautiful universe in his glorious picture book There Is a Tribe of Kids. Smith's appealing and kid-friendly--yet artfully stylized and elegantly hip--artwork blossoms with each reading.
The story--a boy's solo odyssey through the natural world--begins with his happy discovery of some baby goats: "There was a TRIBE of KIDS." Much of the narrative unfurls in wordless comic strip-style panels, often expressing the joy of interaction between the boy and his new animal friends, followed by a quiet sense of loneliness when they part ways. The only words in the book highlight collective nouns, from "There was a SMACK of JELLYFISH" to "There was a "BAND of GORILLAS."
When the boy arrives at the ocean shore, there's a "sprinkle" of lightning bugs and a "family" of stars, a "bed" of clams and a "night" of dreams. A "trail" of shells leads to... a "tribe" of kids, this time a tree full of leaf-clad human ones, much like Peter Pan's lost boys, except with girls, too. Is this a homecoming for the boy... or a discovery?
Perhaps There Is a Tribe of Kids is about the deep need for connection, and the exuberance, and often humor, that arises from it. It's a celebration of the wondrous natural world where whales spout and caterpillars morph into butterflies--and how sometimes the line between animals and humans isn't as well defined as one might think. A "sparkle" of gems. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness