Author(s): Julie Morstad

Picture | Thinking & Feeling

This imaginative 'how to' book explores whimsical ways of doing a host of different tasks, including 'how to wonder', 'how to see the breeze', and 'how to be brave'.

With text and images by award-winning illustrator Julie Morstad, this book will be beloved by all ages. How to read this book? That is up to you!

Review:
Starred Review - School Library Journal, PreS-Gr 1-A treatise on "how-tos," including how to go fast, how to see the wind, and how to be brave. More imaginative selections include how to wash your face (look up in the rain), how to watch where you're going (follow the movements of your shadow), and how to wonder (gaze at the night sky). Morstad's spare text and whimsical fine-line drawings with pastel enhancements portray children encountering new experiences enriched with whimsy and quiet wit. This guide will engage and delight youngsters. Ideal for one-on-one sharing, it will be read again and again.

Starred Review - KIRKUS REVIEW
Smart, clean design and a text built around unpunctuated phrases offer room to pause, ponder and discuss in this book of quiet joy. Ample white space foregrounds a multicultural cast, whose patterned clothing, props and minimal, but visually exciting, settings take center stage. In the opening spread, "how to go fast," readers consider options as eight youngsters whoosh by, one riding a scooter, another navigating stilts, a third sporting butterfly wings. The parade's leader is nearly off the page. "How to see the wind" prompts conversation about the kites, grass and hair shown at various angles--and the metaphysical question itself. Morstad explores topics of interest to children, from "staying close" (two girls sharing one braid) to disappearing--a scene in which meaning comes first from the curtained image; the text is nearly invisible. She intersperses colorful backgrounds, as well as single- and double-spread compositions for an overall effect that elicits anticipation at every turn. As in this Canadian's illustrations for the work of other authors (Caroline Woodward's Singing Away the Dark, 2010; Sara O'Leary's When I Was Small, 2012), the characters' delicate features exhibit an absorption in their activities that simultaneously signals the seriousness and satisfaction of concentration. The "be happy" conclusion portrays unself-conscious movement--including that initial runner, leaving the book.

Starred Review, Q & Q
From the outset, it's clear that Julie Morstad's How To is a very special book. Each page features the Vancouver artist's trademark pen-and-ink drawings of kids just being kids: taking things slow (by lying in a field surrounded by butterflies, flowers, and tall grass), feeling the breeze (by riding a bike downhill), and making music (by whacking pots and pans with a spoon). All of Morstad's illustrations are beautifully realized, most of them with a spot of silliness that will keep young readers' interest piqued just enough for that last, sleepy book before bedtime.
The first page sets the tone. Morstad's parade of kids trooping across the page give just a few examples of "How to go fast," but serve to open the imagination to myriad others: walking, running, dancing, bouncing, or twirling, alone or in the company of friends. There are as many ways to go fast as there are kids to imagine them.
"How to be brave" and "How to make friends" might bring on misty eyes and a lump in the throat, while "How to disappear," "How to make a sandwich," and "How to be a mermaid" are guaranteed to elicit giggles, and are worth a try at playtime or in the bath.
Compared with countless books that try so very hard to teach a lesson or prove a point, this one delights with its easy, unforced relationship between words and pictures. The text is very short, but any parent craving something to talk to their child about at storytime will find opportunities to stretch it out - children can discuss what makes them feel brave or happy, or describe the sensation of the wind on their skin. They can draw it. They can act it out. They can enjoy it, and so will you. Rarely are books so alive.