Fort-Building Time

by Megan Wagner Lloyd, Abigail Halpin (Illustrator)

Overview

Grab your blankets and pillows! From the creators of Finding Wild, a new picture book that follows the changing of the seasons and is as cozy as a fort.
 
Winter, spring, summer, fall. Each season brings new materials to make the perfect fort. From leaves to snow, from mud to sand, there is a different fort throughout the year. As a group of friends explore and build through the seasons, they find that every fort they make is a perfect fort.
 
From the team behind Finding Wild, which Publishers Weekly called “a sparkling debut” and a “whimsical meditation on the idea of wildness,” Megan Wagner Lloyd and Abigail Halpin are together again for a portrayal of a classic childhood endeavor that is perfect all year long.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399556555
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	53,582
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD470L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

About the Author

Megan Wagner Lloyd lives in Washington, D.C., with her family. She loves hiking in the woods and exploring on the beach. Finding Wild was her first book. Visit Megan at meganwagnerlloyd.com.

Abigail Halpin grew up in Maine and spent her summers camping with her family. Her previous picture books include Bella’s Rules by Elissa Haden Guest and Finding Wild by Megan Wagner Lloyd. She has also illustrated many beautiful covers for novels. She lives in New Hampshire. Visit her at theodesign.com and follow her on Instagram at @abigailhalpin.

Editorial Reviews

"When is the best time for fort building? Any time, any season, as explained in this zestful picture book...
The busy pages show children skiing, squishing in the mud in the rain, drawing pictures and reading books, swimming,hunting for shells, writing poems, and hiking on trails. Ebullient illustrations in watercolor and colored pencils invite readers to get busy building. The delightfully detailed, colorful double-page spreads spur imagination and enthusiastically embrace fun."—Booklist

"This colorful tribute to the perennial childhood occupation of fort-building  follows a group of children through the seasons as they use materials at hand to create cozy private spaces...At a time when more children look to screens for their fun, this book might remind them to look around instead."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

10/01/2017
PreS-Gr 1— This colorful tribute to the perennial childhood occupation of fort-building follows a group of children through the seasons as they use materials at hand to create cozy private spaces. Lloyd uses hyphenated adjectival participles to create a rhythmic description of each season. Winter is "snowball-throwing, scarf-wrapping, sled-pulling, ice-sliding time"—reminding readers that each time of year is a perfect "fort-building" too. Winter's garlanded igloo is replaced by a bedsheet and blanket tent in the woods. It is followed by a driftwood and beach towel lean-to that gives way to a hut covered with branches and leaves, and ends with a near-catastrophe as a pet dog "helps out." Engaging with their natural environment and with one another in the building process, children can also use creativity, critical thinking, and teamwork. Halpin's sweet, detailed watercolor-and-pencil drawings of a diverse group of friends enjoying the outdoors and working together will encourage readers to see the potential in their own environments. Linguistic and narrative parallels reinforce a sense of movement and activity and create opportunities for word work. At a time when more children look to screens for their fun, this book might remind them to look around instead. VERDICT Use in the classroom for fun project-based learning, or at home with your sheets and couch cushions. Recommended.— Lisa Lehmuller, Paul Cuffee Maritime Charter School, Providence

School Library Journal

2017-08-02
A celebration of fort-building play throughout the year.A diverse cast of children with different skin colors and hair textures builds forts with a wide variety of materials in winter, spring, summer, and fall. "WINTER is a…dog-snuggling, cocoa-drinking, snowman-making, fort-building time!" the book opens, and illustrations flesh out the action with said diverse characters and specific materials—in this case, an Asian boy skis past a white girl and a black girl playing near a snow fort festooned with evergreen garlands and pine cones hanging from red string. New fort-building materials are introduced with the changing seasons, and additional characters join in the play, but neither text nor illustrations ever develops a narrative. Instead, text and art simply depict the children's fort-building activities (some quite spectacular) until the final pages depart from the seasonal structure and depict children grappling with a fort that falls apart and then needs rebuilding. "Every season has its own secret-dreaming, cozy-keeping, hush-listening, fort-building time," reads the text that introduces those pages, perhaps inviting readers to dream up their own fort-building activities, no matter the season. Playful reading fun. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews