There Is A Tribe of Kids by Lane Smith – Book Review

Author: Lane Smith

Published by: Roaring Books Press (Macmillan)

Released: May 2016

Ages: 4 – 9

RaisingMom.ca Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars ***RaisingMom.ca STARRED REVIEW***

Starred Reviews in: Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly

Order from Chapters/Indigo, Amazon.ca or Amazon.com*

“When a young boy embarks on a journey alone . . .
he trails a colony of penguins,
undulates in a smack of jellyfish,
clasps hands with a constellation of stars,
naps for a night in a bed of clams,
and follows a trail of shells,
home to his tribe of friends. 

If Lane Smith’s Caldecott Honor Book Grandpa Green was an homage to aging and the end of life, There Is a Tribe of Kids is a meditation on childhood and life’s beginning. Smith’s vibrant sponge-paint illustrations and use of unusual collective nouns such as smack and unkindness bring the book to life. Whimsical, expressive, and perfectly paced, this story plays with language as much as it embodies imagination.”

I will freely admit my bias towards this book before I even opened the cover.  I am a HUGE Lane Smith Fan.  Grandpa Green, It’s a Book, Science Verse, The Stinky Cheese Man, and Hooray for Diffendoofer Day are just some of the titles that I love and bought for my children’s bookshelf before they were even a twinkle in the eye. I was expecting great things from this book, and was not disappointed!  The author uses oil paint, sprayed varnish, and coloured pencils to create a mesmerizing jewel-toned world. A solitary young boy encounters several groups of animals as he journeys towards belonging in this tribute to collective nouns. The rich illustrations are paneled to capture the movement in each scene as the boy encounters the various collectives.  The message appears to be that every being needs a place to belong and children need other children (and a family – as shown on the last page). There is some poetic license taken that deviates from “official” collective nouns (e.g. an “ocean of blue”), but that only adds to the charm of this book.

My almost-3-yo tracked really well with this story.  She paused over the engaging illustrations and asked me to repeat the rich language in order to try saying the words herself (e.g. unkindness, formation, smack, parade).  We discussed multiple meanings for words and why they might have been chosen to as the collective noun to describe a group of these animals or items in nature. Language enrichment!  The “night of dreams” page elicited a lengthy discussion of what dreams are and why we have them and how dreams fill our nights.

My 15 month toddler twins were fascinated with the rich and detailed illustrations and pointed at pictures of the animals as we progressed.  We practiced saying the animal names (repetition for language development).  Though not identified for younger kids, it can be used for several purposes with a younger audience: identification of detail in illustrations, learning names of / recognizing animals, etc.

The publisher has created a .pdf of ideas for using the book in the classroom, but many ideas could be used by parents at home with their children.  I especially love the ones that use healthy food to create the animals (e.g. the turn of turtles) and then kids can eat their creation as a healthy snack.

Excellent for language enrichment and development, introduction to nature and items in the wild, the varied collective nouns for groups of the same type of organism (discussion of nouns and other parts of speech). Rich illustrations are eye-catching and realistic.