“Rodney was outside-more outside than he had ever been before.” Rodney, a Black child in a diverse, contemporary classroom, is experiencing nature on a scale both grand and intimate at the center of this buoyant yet contemplative picture book with illustrations that reflect both the changing physical landscape and emotional range of the story as Rodney discovers that “outdoors” can not only be “majestic,” but peaceful, too. It’s a place where he can climb high on a cliff, or down low into a canyon he can run and shout, or discover small things of great beauty with quiet observation. At the other end, it emerges into bright sunshine and a park unlike any Rodney has known. “It had one large cardboard trash can and two benches where some grownups sat all day long.” The day of the trip, however, the bus rumbles right by that park, out of the city, past farm fields, and through a mountain tunnel.
But Rodney isn’t excited about an upcoming field trip to the park-he knows the little, triangle-shaped space with yellow grass in his city neighborhood. Rodney likes moving, not sitting in a desk at school he likes the freedom of outside, not the constraints of inside. Her picture book, Wheres Rodney (Yosemite Conservancy, 2017) illustrated by the award-winning artist, Floyd Cooper, was a starred Kirkus Best Picture Book. ISBN: 978-1-93 Where’s Rodney? by Carmen Bogan
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