There Is a Tribe of Kids

From children's book luminary Lane Smith comes a meditation on childhood; the enchanting story of one young boy's adventures.
When a young boy embarks on a journey alone . . .
he trails a colony of penguins,
undulates in a smack of jellyfish,
clasps hands with a constellation of stars,
naps for a night in a bed of clams,
and follows a trail of shells,
home to his tribe of friends.

If Lane Smith's Caldecott Honor Book Grandpa Green was an homage to aging and the end of life, There Is a Tribe of Kids is a meditation on childhood and life's beginning. Smith's vibrant sponge-paint illustrations and use of unusual collective nouns such as smack and unkindness bring the book to life. Whimsical, expressive, and perfectly paced, this story plays with language as much as it embodies imagination.

There is a shelf of books by Lane Smith. Grandpa Green, It's a Book, and the middle grade novel Return to Augie Hobble dwell there, among others. In 2012, the Eric Carle Museum named him a Carle Artist for "lifelong innovation in the field of children's picture books," and in 2014, he was awarded the lifetime achievement award from the Society of Illustrators. He lives in an old house in Connecticut with the designer Molly Leach and a scurry of flying squirrels.