The Wanderer

August 1, 2020
A paper boat navigates an intercontinental voyage, meeting fantastic creatures, industrial ships, and surprising allies. In this mind-blowing debut, Belgian author Van den Ende presents over 60 intricately rendered drawings, depicting everything from Escher-esque schools of fish to vast expanses of ocean and sky. The wordless tale begins near the Aleutians, as ship Exploratio launches the tiny boat. Its encounters--with fish-mammal hybrids, Antarctic ice caverns, and more--unfold above meticulously detailed underwater tableaux. The conflicted interplay between humans and ocean habitats is portrayed throughout. Juxtaposed with a doleful, pipe-smoking baleen whale is a surreal anglerfish/crustacean hybrid with a broadcasting TV as bait perched atop a sunken trove of boats (including a paper one). More whimsically, a giant squid trades bottled ink for bound books. Chillingly, a deep-sea oil rig, a whale hanging from one crane, spews noxious smoke amid dying birds and fish. The paper boat assists a diver during an armed attack from the rig. It's rescued, in turn, during a storm and, again, after a waterlogged sinking. Achieving a European port, the paper boat reencounters the many beings and crafts that abetted its journey. Six intriguing final panels delineate the paper boat docking below a small house. As the boat fades away, a human figure materializes, adorned with images from the voyage--including the paper boat. As the figure encounters another at the doorway, readers are left to their own conjurations. Marvelously engrossing--a triumph. (map) (Picture book. 6-12)

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August 10, 2020
Dutch artist Van den Ende follows a mysterious paper boat on a surreal, at times oppressive-feeling journey across the world’s oceans. Wordless, closely worked black-and-white spreads conjure an alternative Earth whose reefs hold strange life-forms. The paper boat—it’s as tall as a person (or are the people as small as the boat?)—is folded and launched from a galleon by a fair-haired human and a horned, caped figure. On its voyage, the paper craft encounters monstrous sea creatures, icebergs, murky depths illuminated by sea life, and more. Approaching a drilling rig that pumps poison into the air, it takes a bullet while sea birds drop out of the sky, dead. The black caped figure and attendant bright-eyed creatures intervene. At last, the paper boat arrives at the harbor of a surreal port city, where a final reunion leaves still another mystery. Charged with a current of imaginative power, Van den Ende’s artwork, like an Escher drawing leaning into oceanic and naval architecture, results in a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea sensibility and an unsettling blend of warm nostalgia and chilly futurism. Ages 8–up.

Starred review from September 1, 2020
Grades 3-7 *Starred Review* If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this remarkable 96-page book is worth 96,000! Unfortunately, this review can contain only 220, but happily that is ample to lavish praise on this wordless book, the black-and-white illustrations of which speak volumes. The story they tell is a simple one, though: a pilotless little paper boat begins an epic sea voyage that will?judging from introductory maps?circumnavigate the globe. But what a globe! Its seas are a brilliantly imagined phantasmagoria populated by fantastic creatures that the boat encounters on its voyage. The waters on which it sails teem with beings that only vaguely resemble any in real life, some of them so otherworldly as to beggar description. Others are more recognizable, however: a seahorse, for example, hitches a ride for several full-page panels; a dog chases a cat over the waves; and what may be a human being appears wearing a diving suit. Things become more reality-rooted as the boat nears the end of its voyage, passing a lighthouse, a people-filled pier, two ocean liners, and more. Not surprisingly, the voyage's terminus returns to the phantasmagoric, leaving the happy reader to wonder. Van den Ende's work may evoke that of Shaun Tan or of Chris Van Allsburg at his enigmatic best, but, in the end, this gifted Belgian artist is absolutely sui generis.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)