Time Capsule
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
The joy a child finds in making their own time capsule, filled with everyday objects, comes alive in this inviting picture book from the MacArthur “genius grant” recipient and award-winning author of Radioactive.
A set of dice. A grandmother’s ring. The key to an old house. A child gathers keepsakes from everyday life, seals them in a jar, and buries them underground. A gift from the present day…to people of the future…that tells a story about the past. A time capsule.
The first book for children by renowned artist and writer Lauren Redniss will get readers thinking about the times they are living through and how their world will be remembered in ages to come. It will also spark creativity, inviting young people to envision the future and to make their own time capsules.
Extra pages in the back include tips on making your own time capsule and facts about different kinds of time capsules in history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Redniss, winner of a MacArthur "genius grant," makes her picture book debut with a meditation on material culture, history, and memory, all reflected through a green glass jar that becomes one child's time capsule. As the girl, who has brown skin, places items in the jar (starting with the date: "New York, Thursday, July 2, 2020"), mixed-media drawings, rendered in fine lines and softly textured washes, catalog the contents alongside minimal, reportorial typewritten-style text: "She added her tooth, which had fallen out a week earlier." Changing background landscapes and varying degrees of context, detail, and reality give other jar additions the feel of reverie: "the key to an old house" attends the image of a figure walking through a red door, "the ticket from a visit to the aquarium" is held in front of a viewing window filled with colorful fish, and "her dream about outer space" is pictured in textural, inky blue. The girl buries the jar ("Open in 100 years," its label reads) and wonders who will find it, an arc that hints at questions about objects' meaning and what unlocks the mystery of existence in time and in place. Back matter includes an author's note. Ages 4–8.
