The Return

by Natalia Chernysheva

Overview

Coming home from her independent city life, a young woman rediscovers childlike wonder and comfort at her grandmother’s house.

A young woman gets on the bus and rides out of the big city. She arrives in the countryside, where she is as big as a giant, looming over a tiny house, a garden and her tiny grandmother. The cabbages and the apple trees are far below. Her grandmother smiles up at her in her yellow hat. The young woman bends down to give her little grandmother a big kiss, and then she smells her grandmother’s cooking. She has returned home. When they sit down at the table, the young woman has shrunk to a child-like size, and the two share a meal together in the garden.

In this gentle, wordless story Natalia Chernysheva beautifully captures the feelings of coming home to comfort and memories and of returning to our childlike selves.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7
Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781773062099
Publisher:	Groundwood Books
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Pages:	36
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

NATALIA CHERNYSHEVA is a director, animator and artist. She is the director of four award-winning films: The Gossamer (2016), Deux Amis (2014), Le Retour (2013) and Snowflake (2012). Natalie studied graphics and animation at Ural State Academy of Architecture and Art, and she has worked as an animator, artist and designer on animated films, including That Is the Wedding (2011) and Letter (2011). She studied at La Poudrière film school in Paris.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for Natalia Chernysheva and The Return:

2020 USBBY Outstanding International Books List

"As comforting as a home-cooked meal.” — Kirkus, starred review

"Readers of all ages will enjoy working together to craft a story and dialogue to accompany the emotional imagery of this book.” — School Library Journal

“[A] spare, eloquent, affecting story.” — Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast Blog

Editorial Reviews

As comforting as a home-cooked meal.

Kirkus Reviews

Readers of all ages will enjoy working together to craft a story and dialogue to accompany the emotional imagery of this book.

School Library Journal

★ 2019-06-23
A young adult comes home in Chernysheva's uplifting wordless picture book.

A lone house stands beside an outstretched tree in a vast, empty field. The light-skinned traveler boards a yellow bus, its driver just a mere shadow. The yellow bus makes its way through the crowded streets of Moscow as buildings and churches loom overhead in a mishmash of lines and blank spaces. On and on the bus goes until it deposits the traveler onto that vast, empty field to make the way to the house, where a small figure tends the garden. The gardener—a parent or grandparent, perhaps—looks up. The giant traveler towers over the minuscule gardener in a series of double-page spreads that play with space and perspective in unusual ways. Chernysheva's plain, mostly colorless artwork maintains a focus on the long journey and eventual reunion thanks to the book's languid pace. Color (primarily red and yellow) emerges during seemingly minor yet significant moments, drawing attention to each character's love for the other. A deep embrace and a sweet kiss to the cheek cement the relationship between the two adults. The old gardener stirs up a pot of warm stew, and the traveler (now the size of a child) sits down amid the garden.

As comforting as a home-cooked meal. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews