A DRIVE IN THE COUNTRY

In homage to the days when gas was cheap and family fun was a Sunday drive in the country, author and illustrator provide readers with an elegiac outing in which children do not whine or get car sick. The day includes whizzing past fields, shopping at farm stands, blowing milkweed seeds, playing car games (when you pass a graveyard, lift both feet off the floor) and singing songs whose words are only half remembered. In perfect harmony with the author’s idyllic reminiscence, Burckhardt’s handsome acrylic-on-board illustrations have a primitive yet retro sensibility with a subtly crackled surface and predominating palette of turquoise and Granny Smith–green. Ribbons of country road thread through the pages unifying the pleasant whole. Question the accuracy of rear-seat shoulder harnesses, but don’t question the essential meaning: “the only place we wanted to go was Together, just our family, and a Sunday drive in the country took us there.” (Picture book. 5-8)