For those of you who have read Thoreau’s Walden, for those of you who have visited Walden Pond and imagined the days and nights of Thoreau in his tiny yet perfect cabin, and for those of you would like your children to experience the profound life and ideals of Henry David Thoreau, I offer as a reading suggestion, Thoreau at Walden by John Porcellino.
As part of The Center for Cartoon Studies series, John’s impeccably clean and simplistic art provides an intriguing companion to Thoreau’s words (all of the text in this book is from Thoreau’s original text). For adult readers, this is a wonderful way to revisit the spirit of Walden; for younger readers this is a perfect entry point to one of the most revered works of philosophy and early environmentalism our country produced. It is truly cartoonish in style, which oddly enough brings more focus onto Thoreau’s words. It’s a perfect pairing, and an example of what can be done to illuminate classic texts for younger readers.
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