Out of the Way! Out of the Way!
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Selected for the USBBY Outstanding International Book List
A young boy spots a baby tree growing in the middle of a dusty path in his village. He carefully places rocks around it as the local mango seller rushes past shouting, "Out of the way! Out of the way!" As the tree grows bigger, people and animals traverse the path until it becomes a lane, flowing like a river around the tree— getting out of its way. Over time, the lane becomes a road, and a young man crossing the road with his children remembers the baby tree from long ago. By the time he is an old man, the tree has become a giant. The city traffic continues to rattle past, noisier and busier than ever, but sometimes the great tree works its magic, and people just stop, and listen.
In this simple, lyrical story, a wide-spreading tree and a busy road grow simultaneously, even as time passes and the footsteps of people and animals give way to speeding cars, buses and trucks. The illustrations, in pen-and-ink with vibrant blocks of color, have a classic folk-art feel.
The author and illustrator, who really do share the same name (except for the last letter!), have always wanted to do a book together.
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.K.2
With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7
Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.5
Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the outset of this lighthearted account of life in an Indian village, a boy carefully places rocks around a baby tree growing in the middle of a path. "Out of the way! Out of the way!" a mango seller yells. Before long, that cry has new meaning: the tree has grown so big that people must swerve to avoid it. Ox-carts give way to cars. Machines come to pave the road, "sputtering their way carefully around the tree." Krishnaswamy's (And Land Was Born) na f, folk-art figures crowd the pages, selling things and carrying huge loads on their heads, while birds dart and cows wander along. Krishna-swami's (The Grand Plan to Fix Everything) fanciful prose has an e.e. cummings feel (a crush of blobby vehicles goes "from here to there and back again"). The action can be hard to follow because it's so diffuse; the boy grows from a young man into a silver-haired grandfather, but he is not always the focus of the story's action. Still, it's a rare thing: a book about generations and growth that doesn't come across as preachy. Ages 4 7.
