Halfway Wild

On some days, there's just not a good word for the way you are feeling. If your socks are sagging and your pants are wrinkled, what do you call it? Maybe you're feeling like a turtle. Maybe you're feeling halfway wild. Writer Laura Freudig has found a delightful new way to describe those feelings in this poetic and playful picture book that connects children, not just to feelings and emotions, but also to animals and the quirks and patterns of the natural world. We follow one family through the course of a day as they march through meadows like ants, dive to the depths like seals, play hide and seek like fireflies, and chatter like raccoons, until, at last, "… when the house is still and all we can hear are the soft, slow breaths of the ones we love, we're a family of bears." Illustrator Kevin Barry blends the real with the fantastic in works of art that will make young readers lean in for a closer look, marvel, and dream.

Laura Freudig lives on an island along the Maine coast with her husband, five children, two ducks, fifteen chickens, one dog, and nine thousand honeybees. She likes reading, singing, hiking, and gardening. At an early age, Kevin Barry began drawing crazy cats and martial artist monkeys on the backs (and corners) of his homework assignments, a habit he has yet to break. He was thrilled to put this wildlife sketching inclination to good use in illustrating "Halfway Wild." When not illustrating books for children, the award-winning children’s book illustrator can be found either scratching out stories with elementary students; snout deep in a book; or exploring the wilds of New England with his Halfway Wild family.