All Alone

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All Alone (Reissue) Pub. Date: 5/1/2003 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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All Alone (Library Binding - Reissued 2003) Pub. Date: 5/1/2003 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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All Alone Pub. Date: 9/1/1981 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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All Alone (Library Binding) Pub. Date: 1/1/1981 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

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Overview

When you are alone, you can do all sorts of things — pretend you are tiny (or enormous), hear things other people can't hear, and see things they can't see. Being alone is fine — sometimes.

Kevin Henke's first book makes it clear that he remembers his own childhood and respects that time in others. His remarkable paintings have a life and luminescense that are unforgettable.

It's always fun to spend time with friends, but every now and then it's nice to be by yourself. When you're alone, there is no end to what you can imagine and no limit to what you can do. You might hear the trees breathe in the wind. Maybe you'll feel tall enough to taste the sky or so small that you can hide behind a stone. Best of all, you can look at yourself both inside and out and know that no one is just like you. Originally published in 1981, All Alone was Kevin Henkes's first book for children. With a pitch-perfect text and full-color paintings that capture the wonder and delight of a child's world, this remarkably accomplished debut is available again for a new generation of readers.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Kevin Henkes offers a meditative reflection on the joys of solitude in his first book, All Alone, originally published more than 20 years ago. A boy contemplates the joys of using his imagination-"When I'm alone,/ I can change my size any way I like./ I can be tall enough to taste the sky"-ultimately concluding that being all alone is fun "for just a while." Watercolor-and-colored-pencil art complements the gentle text with timeless images of nature and wonder. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

Children need time alone—quiet time to explore and to wonder at the world—and sometimes adults may forget how new and surprising that world can be to kids. The little boy in this story spends some time by himself and reflects, realizing that when he is alone he hears more and sees more. He can hear the trees breathe and he can make out shapes in their tangled roots. He basks in the sun and stretches up to taste the sky, but he also thinks about his friends, wondering what they are doing, for he doesn't spend all his days alone. He just wants to live all by himself for a while. The artwork is done in watercolors and colored pencils and each picture appears sealed within glass, the moment captured as a precious memory. The story was originally published over twenty years ago, but today's children may need that sense of quiet, that interlude, more than ever because their days are often scheduled and busy. 2003 (orig. 1981), Greenwillow/HarperCollins,
— Carolyn Mott Ford <%ISBN%>0060541156

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780060541156
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 5/1/2003
Edition description: Reissue
Pages: 40
Sales rank: 399,476
Age range: 4 - 8 Years
Product dimensions: 6.50 (w) x 7.75 (h) x 0.25 (d)

Meet the Author

Kevin Henkes

Kevin Henkes is the author and illustrator of many books for children of all ages—among them are Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Chrysanthemum, and Wemberly Worried. He was awarded the Caldecott Medal for Kitten's First Full Moon, a Caldecott Honor for Owen, and a Newbery Honor for Olive's Ocean. He lives with his family in Madison, Wisconsin.

Biography

Kevin Henkes still owns some of his favorite books from childhood. "They're brimming with all the telltale signs of true love: dog-eared pages, fingerprints on my favorite illustrations, my name and address inscribed on both front and back covers in inch-high lettering, and the faint smell of stale peanut butter on the bindings," he says in an interview on his web site.

Back in his peanut-butter sandwich days, Henkes dreamed of becoming an artist. By high school, he had combined his love of drawing with a newfound interest in writing, and at age 19, he took his portfolio to New York City in hopes of finding a publisher. Young Henkes returned home from his weeklong trip with a contract from Greenwillow Books, and he's worked as a children's writer and illustrator ever since.

Henkes's style has evolved over the years to include more humor, more whimsy and a lot more mice. Though he began illustrating his picture books with realistic drawings of children, he's since developed a recurring cast of mouse characters rendered in a more cartoon-like style -- though with a range of expressions that make the spirited Lilly, anxious Wemberly, fearless Sheila Rae and sensitive Chrysanthemum into highly believable heroines. Owen, the story of a little mouse who isn't ready to give up his tattered security blanket, won a Caldecott Honor Medal for its winsome watercolor-and-ink illustrations.

Many of Henkes's mouse books deal with such common childhood ordeals as starting school, being teased and getting lost. Chrysanthemum, about a mouse whose new schoolmates tease her about her name, was inspired by Henkes's own feelings when he started school. "The book is about family, and how starting something new and going out into the world can be very hard," he told an interviewer for The Five Owls. "I remember going to kindergarten -- my grandfather had a beautiful rose garden, and he gave me the last roses of the season to bring to the kindergarten teacher the next day. I don't even remember how it happened, but an older kid took these flowers from me on the playground, and I remember coming home, feeling awful." As a grown-up, Henkes is able to translate difficult childhood transitions into stories that are both honest and reassuring. In a review of Chrysanthemum, Kirkus Reviews noted: "Henkes's language and humor are impeccably fresh, his cozy illustrations sensitive and funny, his little asides to adults an unobtrusive delight."

Henkes has also written novels for older children, in which he "explores family relationships with breathtaking tenderness" (Publisher's Weekly). In The Birthday Room, for example, a twelve-year-old boy learns the reason for his mother's long estrangement from her brother, and helps effect a reconciliation. "Refreshingly, Henkes has given us a male protagonist who is reflective, creative and emotionally sensitive," wrote Karen Leggett in The New York Times Book Review. "Ben feels the anguish of his mother's long-simmering bitterness and his uncle's agonizing guilt. Yet at a time when it is almost a fad to blame dysfunctional families for problems, we learn that even though there are never simple answers and not many fairy-tale endings, families can heal."

Though his novels are more complex and serious than his picture books, all Henkes's works suggest an author with deep empathy for the intense emotions of childhood. As a Publisher's Weekly reviewer wrote, "Behind each book is a wide-open heart, one readers can't help but respond to, that makes all of Henkes's books of special value to children."

Good To Know

Henkes's wife, Laura Dronzek, is also an artist. She painted the cover illustration for Henkes' novel Sun and Spoon and illustrated his picture book Oh!.

Henkes has turned down requests to use his mouse characters in a television series, but some of his books are available in video form in Chrysanthemum and More Kevin Henkes Stories. The video's narrators include Meryl Streep, Sarah Jessica Parker and Mary Beth Hurt.

Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse has been adapted into a stage play.

1. Hometown:
  
  Madison, Wisconsin
1. Date of Birth:
  
  November 27, 1960
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Racine, Wisconsin
1. Education:
  
  University of Wisconsin, Madison
2. Website:
  
  http://www.kevinhenkes.com

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All Alone

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Overview

All Available Formats + Editions

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More About This Book

Overview

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Children's Literature

Product Details

Meet the Author

Kevin Henkes

Biography

Good To Know

Customer Reviews

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