By Holling Clancy Holling
A boy carves a small wooden man in a canoe, writes 'I am Paddle-to-the-Sea' on the bottom, and sets him on a snowbank to be carried off when the snow melts, all the way through the Great Lakes to the ocean.
A boy in the Canadian north woods spends a whole winter carving a small wooden man in a canoe. On the bottom he writes, 'Please put me back in the water. I am Paddle-to-the-Sea,' and he leaves him on a snowbank so the spring melt will carry him off. It does. For four years Paddle rides the current down through all five Great Lakes, over the brink of a sawmill, past a forest fire, through the foam of Niagara Falls, out the St. Lawrence, and at last to the sea. Holling fills every margin with maps, wildlife, and the workings of the things Paddle floats past, so you're really following one small carved figure across real geography. People call it a living book because it's a story and an atlas in one.
If your child likes maps and real places, this is about the best there is. Each short chapter is one leg of the trip, self-contained enough that a child can tell it back and then find it on a map. It suits a child who likes tracing a route, poring over detailed pictures, and rooting for one small traveler across four years and a couple thousand miles. Holling's margins are packed with things worth a second look, how a canal lock works, what lives in a marsh, the shape of a Great Lakes freighter, and a lot of children end up copying them into a notebook or map of their own.