Halfway Wild - Tapa dura

2017 Moonbean Children's Book Awards Gold Medal for Best Picture Book (Ages 4-8)

2017 Maine Literary Awards Children's Book Award Finalist

On some days, there's just not a good word for someone to describe the way they are feeling. If their socks are sagging and their pants are wrinkled, what do you call it?

Whether a reader is feeling like a turtle or halfway wild, author Laura Freudig has found a delightful new way to describe those feelings in this poetic and playful picture book that connects children, not just to feelings and emotions, but also to animals and the quirks and patterns of the natural world. Readers will follow one family through the course of a day as they march through meadows like ants, dive to the depths like seals, play hide and seek like fireflies, and chatter like raccoons, until, at last, "... when the house is still and all we can hear are the soft, slow breaths of the ones we love, we're a family of bears."

Illustrator Kevin Barry blends the real with the fantastic in works of art that will make young readers marvel, dream, and lean in for a closer look.

Author Laura Freudig lives on an island along the Maine coast with her husband, five children, two ducks, 15 chickens, one dog, and 9,000 honeybees. She likes reading, singing, hiking, and gardening.

At an early age, illustrator Kevin Barry began drawing crazy cats and martial artist monkeys on the backs (and corners) of his homework assignments, a habit he has yet to break. He was thrilled to put this wildlife sketching inclination to good use in illustrating Halfway Wild. When not illustrating books for children, the award-winning children's book illustrator can be found either scratching out stories with elementary students; snout deep in a book; or exploring the wilds of New England with his Halfway Wild family.