GRAND ISLE

A family beach outing becomes an extraordinary adventure.

This flight of fancy begins with an ordinary trip to the beach for a White family of four. After the adults have settled in and taken the requisite picture, the two kids wander down the sand and recede into the distance. Actually, they shrink. Finding a convenient seed pod and using its leaves as oars, they set off for an island. There, they encounter a large egg, save the hatchling from entangling vines, and run from the looming cranelike parent, only to discover that their boat has sailed away. Half an eggshell becomes a makeshift boat, unseaworthy in the giant waves, but, happily, there’s a rescue. Their helpfulness is rewarded. Samworth, the creator of Kirkus Prize–winning Aviary Wonders, Inc. (2014), is much more adept at drawing the natural world than humans. This Brobdingnagian world (to the tiny children) is both appealing and a bit scary. The surreal, outsized flowers are worth admiring, but there are caterpillars twice the children’s height, and carnivorous plants threaten from all sides. Sequential panels suggest the passage of time and add interest to the page design. This is neither as rich nor as well executed as Dennis Nolan’s Sea of Dreams (2011), but many children have wondered what it might be like to be minuscule, and this wordless adventure is accessible even to a quite young beachgoer. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An imaginative journey.