by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 27, 2010

"I lived by myself at the End of the World..."

It's a fascinating premise for a children's book, and M. T. Anderson fills it with colorful details. The narrating little boy spends his days looking for treasure with old maps "from fallen empires," as well as locating fossils, and stringing back together the bones of long monsters - presumably dinosaurs. His shack has a brass-bellied stove, plus a red hammock (with yellow spots) where he likes to listen to the rain. His hammock is filled with straw, and it looks very cozy. Until the story takes a strange turn...

A man named Mr. Shimmer appears with a colorful sign, promising "galvano-magical end of the world tours". He's a "professional visionary," and soon he's returned to pave a clearing with big ditch-digging machines. It's the future site of "the Inn at the End of the World," he promises the tourists that he's brought along. "There was a little crowd, parents and children, staring at me and the End of the World..."

Kevin Hawkes created some wonderful paintings for the book. In the first picture the boy dangles his legs over a high mountain ledge, and the rocks look like a smiling monster. The colors throughout the book seem bright with sunlight - at least until professor Shimmer introduces the fluorescent green of a strange carnival. But through Hawkes illustrations, the end of the world first appears as an unspoiled mountain paradise.

There's slithery beasties in the woods, and "the chuckling beasts with long tails or five legs or big kissing mouths" that snap at the lightning. (Or is the boy just imagining creatures to explain thunder?) But soon there's also the gables and porches of professor Shimmer's luxury inn. There's new friends and a long list of activities. ("We spun in the Gravitron till Bert the dry heaves.") M. T. Anderson is making a point - that the location has lost its wild beauty, as it's replaced by something that's more artificial.

"Stash your tears! Put aside mope...! Swoop for today and forget your tomorrow!" Professor Shimmer bellows from a bullhorn, and soon the narrator hasn't slept for seven days. He and his new friends are wearing sparkler-hats and shock mittens. Until the boy finally takes them off one day, and announces, "I've got to leave.

"I miss the wind..."

There's a beautiful illustration of the boy drifting away in a hot-air balloon - and a beautiful yellow sky behind the mountain craig where he lands. "Now I live alone at the Top of the World," he reports. And then he lists out all the old activities which he can now enjoy again.

And in the afternoon, "I listen to the wind from the empty spaces blow through the bristly pines..."

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