A Room of Your Own
A Story Inspired by Virginia Woolf's Famous Essay
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From award-winning creators—author Beth Kephart and artist Julia Breckenreid—A Room of Your Own is a picture book about the places we go to create, inspired by Virginia Woolf and her noted essay.
Sometimes Virginia Woolf wrote her stories in a garden shed. Sometimes she wrote them among stacks of books in a cool basement. And you? Where do you go to think, to dream, to be? The shade beneath a tall tree? The brick step on a city stoop? The cozy spot beneath the kitchen table? Or inside the night’s deep dark? Not all rooms require four walls and a roof.
Inspired by the writer Virginia Woolf and her celebrated essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” A Room of Your Own is about the importance of claiming a space for oneself.
“Colorful watercolors in spot art and larger scenes depict diverse girls and boys under a tree, on a neighborhood sidewalk, at the kitchen table, under a bedsheet fort, and in more spaces.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Together, images and text combine for an unequivocal ode to the necessity of being oneself, and of having time alone.” —Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Where do you go/ to think,/ to dream,/ to be?" Taking Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own as a jumping-off point, Kephart employs rhythmic lines to prompt readers' own reflections on the possibility of personal space. With the support of Breckenreid's lightly surrealistic pictures—which draw on motifs of blooms, books, and butterflies—room is interpreted expansively as "the shade beneath a tree," "the cool/ beside the tail of the cat,/ behind the tablecloth,/ where nobody has found you yet," and "the cone of light/ inside a bedsheet fort." While depictions of Woolf open and close the dreamy book, and cameos of her appear throughout, most scenes present children of varying skin tones enjoying time to themselves in different types of homes. Together, images and text combine for an unequivocal ode to the necessity of being oneself, and of having time alone. An author's note concludes. Ages 4–8.
