The Way Back Home

Today’s review of THE WAY BACK HOME, written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, comes courtesy of children’s book aficionado, Lindy Michaels of BookStar on Ventura Blvd. in Studio City. While not a new book, it is a recommended one.

Welcome to yet another winning Oliver Jeffers’ children’s book, author of my favorite, LOST AND FOUND, which I reviewed a while back.

Here, the boy finds an airplane in his bedroom and decides to take it for a spin. It’s a terrific adventure, dipping and darting through the wild blue yonder, that is, until he runs out of gas. But where to land? Far from his home on Earth, he is, luckily, able to put his plane down… on the moon.

At that very same moment, a boy alien (is he perhaps a Martian?), in his spaceship, has engine trouble but, coincidentally, is also able to land on the moon.

Meeting up with each other, they both desperately need help to find the way back home, but have no idea how to communicate with each other. Oh, goodness, what in the world would or could they do? But then, using great ingenuity, they find a way to help each other, which bonds them in a lasting friendship. The last page in this wonderful book is my favorite, but I won’t give it away. Oh, okay, think of something being delivered by the UPS man to the boy from his new, far away friend.

With his usual, wonderful illustrations, what I love about Oliver Jeffers’ books, is his ability to give children the opportunity to discuss problems that affect their own lives and how to try and figure them out.

The very versatile Lindy Michaels aims to inspire young minds through children’s literature. Lindy owned L.A.’s first children’s bookshop, OF BOOKS AND SUCH (1972-1987) where she did storytelling, taught drama to children, had art and poetry contests and the like. According to Lindy, “It was truly a ‘land of enchantment.” She also spent years lecturing on realism in children’s literature at colleges in the state. For close to five years Lindy has worked in Studio City for Barnes and Noble (BookStar) in the children’s section and does storytelling every Saturday at 10:30 a.m.