Tulip Sees America

Tulip Sees America, written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Lisa Desimini, is about a boy who goes on a road trip to see the county. The first thing I noticed about this book was the dog. The picture on the front cover is of a boy and a dog by some body of water, and the book is dedicated to Rylant’s two dogs, Leia and Martha Jane. Without even having read any of the book, I automatically started thinking about The Woman who Named Things because the woman in that book loved the dog but was afraid of losing it, so she didn’t name it. Dogs seem to play a huge role in many of Rylant’s books. As I was searching for books written by her in the library, I came upon some others that starred dogs.

I really enjoyed this book. I have never been to any of the places Tulip and her owner went in their green Beetle, but the description allowed me to picture them in my mind. I can imagine the farms in Iowa, the Nebraska skies, the wind in Wyoming, the mountains in Colorado, the desert in Nevada, and the ocean in Oregon. It was a clever idea for Tulip to star in the story.

The book starts out “When I was a boy, I didn’t see much of America. My parents were homebodies, so I stayed home.” This reminds me a lot of my childhood. While my family took a vacation nearly every summer, we never strayed anywhere west of the East Coast. We never flew anywhere; instead, we drove everywhere we went. The book is written in a simple style; it is easy to imagine the boy narrating the story of his trip. The pictures are beautiful. They take up both pages of the spread and depict the place that the boy and his dog Tulip visit. Desimini’s pictures complimented the text very well. The deep green grass makes the pictures seem so lush. The description of the Nebraska skies is beautiful; “it is like one great long breath of freedom and air.” My favorite place was the deserts of Nevada. “Tulip and I did silly things we would do only in Nevada. I took all my clothes off. I don’t know why. Because no one was there. Tulip wasn’t as silly. She just dug a big hole for no reason.” Even as an adult reading this the randomness of it struck me as funny; I’m sure it would be even funnier for a kid.