Andrew Henry's Meadow: 02/05/24

Andrew Henry's Meadow by Doris Burn (1965) is a picture book about a boy with a drive to build and how he helps the oddball children of his community find a place of their own. The titular character is a boy who will build things anywhere he can, at the annoyance of his family. For example: a helicopter in the kitchen, pulleys in the bedroom, a merry-go-round in the laundry room. Fed up one day he sets out to find his own place.

The special location involves an overland trip through a familiar wilderness if you know the landscape of the Cascades. Doris Burns's accompanying illustrations capture the place while keeping the events rather timeless. The only clue to its age is the missing technology: no Smartphones, no easy way for the parents to track their children.

After building his own perfect home away from home with the materials available, Andrew is asked to build homes for each of children who arrive. There's a treehouse, a bridge house, a house of solitude for one who needs to practice her music, and so forth. Each one is beautifully and intricately illustrated in Burn's precise ink line drawings.

Although this book was recommended to me via a conversation on Instagram, it's not my first time reading one of her books. Seventeen years ago I read and reviewed The Summerfolk (1968).

Andrew Henry's Meadow also happens to sit on the Road Narrative Spectrum. The children who end up creating their own village over the course of four days, are marginalized travelers (66). These are all kids who feel like they don't have space of their own at home. Their destination is a rural area (33). Although it starts off as wildlands, they make it into a small, rural village. Their route there is offroad (66), one that the parents later need Andrew's dog to find.

Five stars

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