Issue #0

The Runaway

Plot

Kindergarten-Grade 3-In this successful picture-book adaptation of a Frost poem, a child watches a lone colt spooked by his first snowfall and comments, "Whoever it is that leaves him out so late,/When other creatures have gone to stall and bin,/Ought to be told to come and take him in." In an endnote on Frost, the poem is acknowledged as being a metaphor for "the impetuous spirit of youth." This metaphor is implied visually in Lang's illustrations. The bold, almost silhouetted figures of a girl and her dog watching the colt are rendered in matte colors with no or faint white outlining and evoke the cold, muted brightness of the early winter farm landscape. The artist frames the pictures so that the child's mother only occasionally appears at the periphery of the double-page spreads. The narrator seems to be the girl, who notices the colt's play and the fact that his mother isn't around, but who also plays in the snow unattended. Yet readers know that the child's mother is always at hand and, sure enough, Lang brings the mare to collect her young at the end. It is this visual layer to the text that makes this poem an appealing story for children. Lang makes her vision of this poem haunting enough to suggest new possibilities of interpretation as children grow up and mature.

Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CA.