Reviews
Earth to Audrey
The Globe and Mail
Stéphane Poulin has a unique style. His flat-faced humans with their deeply shadowed eyes almost always look as if they are from another planet. How apt, then, how felicitous, that he has undertaken the illustration of this thought-provoking, haunting picture book.
Ray, the narrator, a boy whose friends have gone away to summer camp, has decided that the strange girl spending the summer with her father in the house next door must be an alien. Of course, because she's Audrey as created by Poulin, she looks like one — her carrot-coloured braids rise from her head like antennae. But she also behaves like one, training grasshoppers, sending signals to someone somewhere, lying down looking up at something — Ray's never quite sure what. Since he's bored and he's always wanted to meet an alien, he decides to say hello.
Audrey, at first reluctant to talk and apparently not comfortable speaking Earth English, gradually opens up. Audrey's perceptions of the world around her reveal a new world for Ray, and ironically it's Audrey, clearly not quite of this world, who expands Ray's universe so that "I felt like we were in her spaceship, seeing the Earth for the first time, new and astonishing."
Audrey introduces Ray to Earth hugs, and to more than a few questions metaphysical and otherwise about the way the planet works. In turn, Ray introduces Audrey to the park and riding bikes around a track and swimming in the public pool: "After watching her in the water, I could tell there weren't swimming pools on her planet."
Then August ends and Audrey's mother arrives to take her home. Thinking about the summer with Audrey, Ray "remembered before meeting Audrey and then after meeting Audrey. Nothing and then something." Of course he wants her to stay, "to give up her life in space. Earth was a good place to live. I could see she was getting to like it."
The last words of this remarkable book are Audrey's response to Ray's request that she stay: "I can't stay, but I'll come back next summer. ..... I wouldn't miss it for anything in the whole universe."
- The Globe and Mail, September 9, 2005
Quill and Quire
Toronto author Susan Hughes’s first picture book captures a summer friendship between a quirky, poetic girl named Audrey and a practical young boy named Ray, who thinks Audrey “must be an alien creature visiting Earth.” In a starred review, Q&Q reviewer Jessica Kelley commended both the “spare, matter-of-fact voice” of the narrator and the text’s “gentle humour and poetic insight,” while also praising the “surreal stillness” of illustrator Stéphane Poulin’s paintings.
-Q&Q’s Books of the Year, 2005
CM Magazine
Hughes, a well-known writer of nonfiction and Poulin, a Governor General's award-winner, showcase their talents in a unique and charming story of friendship which is told with gentle, disarming humor. A bored young boy, with his best friends away for the summer, hesitantly makes friends with a strange girl. Ray is suspicious of her behavior and thinks Audrey may be an alien with very few "earth manners." Ray's impressive imagination takes flight as Audrey sheds an interesting light on his surroundings and teaches him about "earth hugs." This unusual girl sees the world in a different, all-embracing way, and she reveals her insights to Ray, allowing him to view "the earth for the first time, new and astonishing." Readers will be enchanted as Ray and Audrey pass warm summer days with pretend dolphin rides, picnics, viewing the constellations, swimming, a movie, and with Audrey's family exploring the "great explosion at the very beginning."
Oil on canvass paintings, spread over double pages are delightful, and they provide a union between text and image. Audrey is pictured with orange coloured hair and braids that stick up in the air "like antennae." Funny, doll-like faces, colourful backgrounds and interesting perspectives result in joyful and spirited illustrations. Many of the pictures feature details and jokes within, such as a movie poster with a creature walking out of the frame, dolphin-like clouds, Ray and Audrey on a spinning basketball. There's energy and humour to these illustrations and readers will be rewarded by taking the time to look closely at them.
Reesa Cohen is an Instructor of Children's Literature and Information Literacy at the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, MB.
- CM Magazine, University of Manitoba
Copyright © the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.
Education Oasis
The narrator of this elegant, entertaining story is a young boy named Ray. The book opens with him reminiscing about the first time he saw Audrey:
[S]he was sending signals. There couldn't have been anyone up there answering back . . . could there?
When I saw Audrey again, she was training grasshoppers. Her antennae had to be fake. But the grasshoppers didn't seem to think so. After that, I kept my eyes peeled for Audrey. I never knew where she'd turn up. I never knew what she might be doing. She might be creating a strange concoction. She might be building an odd contraption. Lots of times, she was just lying down looking up.
I began to wonder. Was she from another planet? Was she an alien?
Audrey, after all, seemed not quite of this world. She was quirky. She was quiet. She "had not learned many Earth manners."
Slowly Ray slowly gets to know Audrey—who claims to be an ordinary girl who was staying with her father for the summer. As their friendship evolves, Audrey shows Ray—through words and actions—how amazing Earth is.
The next time I saw Audrey, she was taking off her shoes and socks. She saw me, but she didn't say anything. Still no Earth manners.
I went over and took off my shoes and socks too. We stretched out our arms and legs, starfish-like.
"I can feel the Earth holding me," Audrey said, smiling.
"Me too," I said, surprised.
Audrey rolled over and pressed her cheek against the hot grass. She hugged the Earth back.
As summer ends, Audrey must leave with her mother. Ray asks her to stay. "I can't stay," she replies, "but I'll come back next summer . . . I wouldn't miss it for anything in the whole universe."
At heart, this is a story about the joys of friendship and imagination and discovery. The full-spread illustrations—done in oils—are lively and luscious and capture the beauty of this funny, tender tale.
Classroom Use: We took this book into a second-grade classroom to read aloud. The students loved both the story and the illustrations. They especially loved Audrey. The class unanimously gave it a "10," their highest rating. An excellent choice for a read aloud or independent reading.
Highly Recommended. District-wide purchase encouraged.