School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3--Cooper loves to take children on experiential journeys, which he did so expertly in titles such as Train, Farm, and Beach. This time the excursion is on a mighty river--the Hudson--and the conveyance is a canoe. The book opens with a woman--the solo traveler--waving goodbye to her family and setting off from the headwaters of the river in the Adironacks on a 300-mile trek to New York Harbor. Such an ambitious outing takes extensive training and careful planning, but this woman is up to the task and there's no better way of appreciating the river ecosystem than this kind of up-close and intensely personal observation. Cooper captures it all in his gloriously expansive and fluid pencil and watercolor artwork in vignettes and full-bleed spreads. The woman's days consist largely of "paddling, sketching, eating, camping, and paddling again." She spots a variety of wildlife--moose, otters, mergansers, eagles, seals--crashes through a series of rapids, portages around a dam, and follows the locks at a waterfall. With each day's progress downriver, the countryside shifts from farmland to villages and larger towns. The woman has to think fast, takes her lumps in a squall, and paddles on until she reaches the city, and reunites with her family. Beyond her bragging rights, she has exhilarating stories to share and fond memories to hold onto, until her next adventure. VERDICT A marvelous vehicle for nature lovers, armchair travelers, and aspiring boaters and explorers.--Luann Toth, School Library Journal
Publisher's Weekly Review
Seen from a distance, a woman in a canoe waves goodbye to people on the shore and sets out on a journey: "Three hundred miles stretch in front of her." She's paddling the Hudson River from the Adirondacks to the Atlantic Ocean. Sweeping pencil-and-watercolor layers trace rocks crowding the river and clouds crossing the sky. The woman's solitude is underscored in lyrical prose: "There is nothing in the world but her, the bird, this place. No one knows where she is." Cooper (Big Cat, Little Cat) makes the difficulties of the expedition clear: "She staggers--the canoe balancing on her shoulders--down the steep gravel path next to the dam. She trips, drops the canoe." When she reaches the city, lively scenes greet her as all kinds of traffic plies the waters around Manhattan. As she completes the last, most dangerous part of the voyage out to the Atlantic, readers share in the paddler's satisfaction. The woman changes during her journey, and the Hudson does, too, growing from mountain cataract to mighty waterway. An author's note fills in a bit about the river's history, but in this expansive, beautifully rendered offering, the attention is all on the voyage and the moments, tender and tense, that comprise it. Ages 4--8. (Oct.)