The Wanderer by Peter Van den Ende's is my Favorite New Picture Book of 2020
The Wanderer by Peter Van den Ende is my favorite new picture book of 2020. The target audience for this book is most likely children ages 7-10; however, I would argue this book could be equally enjoyed by three-year-olds, thirteen-year-olds, thrifty year-olds, 103 year-olds and everything in between. The visuals in this wordless book are stunning, weird, and are sure to stir one’s imagination. One of my favorite things that I used to do as a Pre-K teacher was use wordless books and ask the students to tell me what they saw in the photo and what they thought was going on in the story. This would be a great book to do that with as there are open to interpretation and an illustration style that children most likely are not accustomed too. The books use of black/white/grey color palette in the illustration could also be a fun activity for children to imitate. Moreover, you can ask children open ended questions for them to imagine and draw what they might see on a wondering journey. I do not want to give too much of it away, but for those that want to you learn more, you can watch The trailer for the book below and a video with the author/illustrator discussing the creation the book below.
