All In A Week

For those who've grown up in a small town, you know what life there can mean to you.  There will be moments when you long to leave, yearning for more of anything.  Even if you do go to make a life elsewhere in a larger community, there will come a time when you recall all the benefits of living in a quieter place where everyone knows who you are and, for the most part, is friendly and willing to lend a helping hand.

For neighbors, adults and children alike, to be able to walk their city streets feeling safe and secure is a wonderful accomplishment.  To leave the comfort of their home and stroll to the local grocery store, bakery, hardware shop, drug store, post office, bank, school, public library, flower shop, park or even a doctor or dentist is not something many are still able to do.  It seems today our communities are spread across larger distances.

If you are willing, let's step back in time and revisit a town called Bloomville.  We first traveled there in the marvelous book called Lucy (Candlewick Press, August 2, 2016) written and illustrated by Randy Cecil.  In a companion title, Douglas (Candlewick Press, September 10, 2019) written and illustrated by Randy Cecil, our attention is focused on a charming, silver screen loving girl and her new acquaintance, a mouse. Join me as we begin with the first of four acts.

ACT I
1
On a Saturday afternoon in Bloomville,
Iris Espinosa put on her sister's blue sweater
and stepped out the front door.
A familiar buttery scent wafted through the air.

Popcorn.

As Iris, wearing her sister's clothing, heads toward the movie theater, she passes a huge feline with an odd number of toes on each paw, six toes to be exact.  She also passes Everett Dunn, stuck on the stoop to his home.  He has a knack for bringing home unwanted pets, so his mother has issued a restriction.  He can't go any farther than the stoop.

Today at the local theater, the Majestic Cinema, a film called Robin Hood is playing.  (It starred Douglas Fairbanks.  It was released in 1922 to great acclaim, even though it was in black and white and was a silent film.)  Like every time Iris goes to the movies, she sits in her same seat only on this day, slightly behind her, is a mouse, who also enjoys movies.  This mouse also loves all the popcorn dropped by the Woman with the Large Hat.  Over-consumption finds the mouse settling in the pocket of a blue sweater worn by a girl who smiles at her.

When the tiny stowaway awakens, she is amazed at the sights of the outside world and terrified of the monster with the six toes on each paw who follows them all the way to Iris's house.  Iris is thrilled to discover the mouse in her pocket and promptly names her Douglas after one of her favorite actors.  The plot, as they say, thickens when Iris's sister, Adriana, takes her sweater, where Douglas is hidden, and leaves to meet her boyfriend's mother. Let's pause here at the beginning of chapter five of eight chapters in act one.

We have met most of the characters, but not all, who will play a part in one harrowing moment after another for Douglas.  True to her namesake, her remarkable skills of swinging, leaping, climbing and masterful agility assist her in barely escaping time and again with her life.  It is during one of her most frightening getaways, someone wonderful is discovered.  Make no mistake, readers, this book's conclusion promises there is always another story to be told.


Readers are certain to be astounded by how Randy Cecil ties all the character threads and plot twists together to supply them with nonstop action.  It's a continuous series of knowing something is about to happen, watching it unfold, open-mouthed, and breathing a sigh of relief when Douglas is unharmed.  The connections between seemingly unrelated incidents are nothing short of miraculous.  (If you think about it, life is a lot like this, if we stand back and look at the larger picture as an observer rather than a participant.)

There is no dialogue in the narrative, but we are very aware as to what each character is thinking during each incident.  Randy Cecil brings us into the story with thoughtful descriptions and meticulous pacing.  Here are two passages.  (I will verify their accuracy once my finished copy arrives.)

This is going so well, thought Adriana as they all sat down
for a cup of tea in the living room.  And then she sneezed.

She reached her hand into her sweater pocket,
hoping to find a handkerchief.
Instead she felt something furry.  And whiskery.

It wriggled in her hand.


Exhausted, Douglas collapsed in a tiny heap on the rooftop.
As her racing heart slowly quieted and her shaking legs slowly stilled,
night began to fall, and the first real stars Douglas had ever seen
appeared in the sky.

She watched as they twinkled, so beautiful yet so impossibly far away.


Poised on the edge of the roof like a superhero examining the world, we are introduced to Douglas.  (I'm working with an ARC generously supplied by the publisher.) Even though Douglas is tiny, she is able to appreciate the world as a larger whole, not confining herself to her immediate surroundings of the cinema.  No matter where she finds herself, she adapts to every challenge.  On the title page, she is standing on top of a barber's pole.  The introduction of each act gives readers a broader view of a portion of Bloomville's streets and the buildings lining them.

All the interior illustrations, rendered in oil, appear in the same shades of white, gray and black as seen on the front of the cover.  They are placed in loose circles on single pages.  These draw our center of attention to all the details Randy Cecil includes in his artwork.  Sometimes he asks us to step back to see more of a scene and then he shifts to show us a close-up of Douglas.  It's like we are watching our own private movie.

One of my many, many favorite illustrations is when Douglas, yet unnamed, is in the movie theater.  Mrs. Pennington, the Woman with the Large Hat, is dropping as many popped kernels of corn on the floor as she is eating.  We move in close to the theater seats.  All we see of Mrs. Pennington are her legs, lower and middle portion of her body, and one arm holding the box of popcorn. Douglas, on the floor next to her, is leaping, mouth wide open, and ready to grab her next kernel of popcorn.


Whether you read this one-on-one, as a read aloud to a large group or silently to yourself, Douglas written and illustrated by Randy Cecil is simply splendid.  It's about friendship, being your best self, and how individual stories are connected to the larger story of us.  I highly recommend this for your personal and professional collections.

To learn more about Randy Cecil and his other work, please follow the link to his website attached to his name.  There is an interior illustration available through the publisher's website. At Candlewick Press you can also read most of the first three chapters, act one.