I REMEMBER MY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY

On a youngster’s eighth birthday, a note sparks a scavenger hunt for “common and uncommon things” in this illustrated children’s book.

The sun rises through the wood-framed window in a dimly lit green room. It is the unseen narrator’s eighth birthday, and the child is woken by the weight of the rucksack that sits at the end of the bed. A note in verse tucked in the rucksack prompts the narrator to search for “thingamajigs” for each of the eight years, with the promise that the scavenger hunt will help the child understand the poem. Spencer’s watercolor and pastel illustrations use flat space inventively. The muted skies, first-person point of view, natural landscapes, and objects whose sizes are proportional to their importance add an enchanting mystery to the narrator’s quest. Carr-Harris invites young readers to imagine themselves as the narrator, but the objects collected paint a more specific, less universal portrait. The narrator’s friend, the son of a “professor of divinity,” gives the child a Canaanite pottery fragment, and they discuss the meaning of civilization before moving on to Grandma for a photograph. A trip to the quarry yields a trilobite fossil—taking the narrator even further back in time. Blocks of text on each page deftly describe the flora of the neighborhood and the feeling of walking and meditating on the sensation of searching without knowing what you are looking for. Not every child will be riveted, but the promise of history in everyday objects will draw those interested in the echoes of the past. The resulting journey is leisurely, evocative, and without clear conclusions—but takes seriously the expanded capacity for the contemplation of time, history, and meaning that comes to youngsters as they get older.

An engaging tale for kids intrigued by significant mementos and their relationships to the past.