Up North at the Cabin

by Marsha Wilson Chall, Steve Johnson (Illustrator)

Overview

Up north ath the cabin,
I am a great gray dolphin.
The lake is my ocean...

Up north at the cabin,
I am a fearless voyageur,
guiding our canoe through the wilderness...

Up north at the cabin
I am always brave —
even in the dark woods,
when blood thumps through my head
like old Ojiway drums.

The magic of summer, the call of the north woods, and the exuberance of childhood imagination combine here to create a book that will be treasured long after the last autumn leaf has fallen.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780688097325
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/15/1992
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	415,491
Product dimensions:	9.34(w) x 11.33(h) x 0.46(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Marsha Wilson Chall grew up an only child in Minnesota, where her father told her the best stories. The author of many picture books, including Up North at the Cabin, One Pup's Up, and Pick a Pup, Marsha teaches writing at Hamline University's MFAC program in St. Paul, Minnesota. She lives on a small farm west of Minneapolis with her husband, dog, and barn cats.

Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher are an illustration team with more than forty picture books in print. Their work has garnered rave reviews and won awards. Their books include My Many Colored Days, Bebop Express, I Walk at Night, New York's Bravest, The Velveteen Rabbit, and The Salamander Room. They were also concept artists for Pixar's Toy Story and A Bug's Life. They live in California with their son.

Editorial Reviews

With evocative prose, Chall conjures up in her debut book the magic of idyllic childhood summers. Her creative use of language brings to life local flora and fauna as viewed through the eyes of a sensitive, enthusiastic city girl--a moose stands ``like a house on stilts,'' cabins are built with logs like ``shiny pretzels.'' In unaffected vignettes (the book has no real story line) the young vacationer baits her fishing hook with peanut butter sandwiches, canoes ``through the wilderness'' and embraces the thrill of water skiing. Johnson's ( The Frog Prince , Continued ; The Salamander Room ) textured oil paintings, daubed with bold brushstrokes, produce a breadth of vision that evokes universal experience. The artwork's smudged effect suggests the haziness of memory in conjunction with sun-dappled days and atmospherically conveys family quiet times, the mysteries deep within cool woods and the invigoration of outdoor sports. This gratifying warm-weather book will surely be savored again when ``frosted windows cloud the sun.'' Ages 5-up. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 1-4-- Chall offers readers a trip to the north woods through her carefully chosen words and Johnson's lush paintings. A young girl anticipates her arrival at the beloved cabin, experiences nature's wonders while there, and returns home with her fond memories until the next summer. Each segment of the child's narrative prose poem is accompanied by wonderful, evocative, full-page oil paintings of the family enjoying the lake and the surrounding wood. Up North at the Cabin is to Minnesota what McCloskey's Time of Wonder (Viking, 1957) is to Maine. To read it is to feel the summer breezes--whatever your location, whatever the time of year. --Kathleen Whalin, Belfast Public Library, ME

School Library Journal