Will and the Soaring Seed
by Devin Boone
Copyright © 2008
$ 13.99 Paperback
$ 5.99 E-book
38 pages, full color interior
I first ran across
Will and the Soaring Seed while reading some posts on the Lulu
Promote Your Book Forum. I was not actually looking for books to review, but doing some research prior to drafting a post promoting the
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? project, which is featured here on the Lulu Book Review under the
WITW is MMC tab. As I was reading through the multitude of posts plugging authors’ work, I read a post by author and illustrator Devin Boone and his description captured me enough to click the link to take a look at the children’s book he was promoting. I was glad that I did.
The cover alone made me smile because it is bright and happy. It draws the reader in and makes them want to dive inside and start turning pages. Will and the Soaring Seed starts off with the magical seed busily soaring around the world, enjoying the sights and sounds and moving on. Then the seed notices the town of Spirit and is attracted to it because it feels special to the seed. As the seed moves through the town of Spirit, it sees several of the townspeople carrying out their jobs that make Spirit a better place to live. Ultimately, the seed spies Will and knows that there is something special about Will because of his enthusiasm and love of school. The following is the description of when will finally meets the seed.
Will could not believe his eyes. He had never seen such brilliant colors. The soaring seed was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen.
Being a former pre-school teacher, I feel that Will and the Soaring Seed is perfect for this age group. I know that is one that we would have read again and again in some of the classes that I taught. The illustrations are bright and colorful and friendly-looking. Having a mother who is an artist, I was interested in how Mr. Boone achieved the effects in his illustrations. To me, they had the look and feel of torn paper art collage, called Chigiri-e in Japanese style artwork, but with something a little different to them. Torn paper art collage is an art form that has been used in several children’s books. An example is author/artist Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a very popular book among the pre-school set.
I asked Mr. Boone how he achieved the effects and his answer was enlightening. Being self-published, and having the story already conceived and written, Mr. Boone needed illustrations. Not having the budget to hire a professional illustrator and having some artistic talent, he decided to illustrate the work himself. He also utilized a software program so that once the artwork was scanned to his computer, he manipulated some of the colors and then applied a cubism filter which gives the artwork that consistent, slightly blurry aspect. This was done in his own words, “. . .to cover up any of my errors or deficiencies as a make-shift illustrator.“ Some adults might find the artwork to be a little fuzzy, which is caused by the cubism filter that has been applied. Pre-schoolers, on the other hand, will more often than not, view the fuzziness as softer and friendlier.
Will and the Soaring Seed is definitely a work of love on the part of the author who dedicates the book to his son and wife. I believe this is a first time effort by this author and we can look for more stories to come in the future from him. If you have a pre-schooler on your Christmas list, Will and the Soaring Seed would make a great present.
