The Fort, an elusive children’s book that perfectly captures their id

A great children’s illustrated book has a way of channeling into the way that kids think. It’s those centricities or absurd things that children think to themselves that make perfect sense to them, but no one else. This is the art of pretend play and the book is The Fort by Laura Pewdew with illustrations by Adelina Lirius. It manages to perfectly capture how the playground or rogue fort in the woods can dramatically change from one person to the next. It’s a book that exists in every child’s imagination, but is rarely seen in public.   

The Fort starts out with the prince going back to his castle. At first he’s a bit bemused because someone has messed up his table and left it all a bit pirate-looking. When playtime ended he got rid of all the pirate things and sauntered back home. Later that afternoon a certain pirate went back to her ship only to find that her treasure map had been written on and the ship looked a bit more royal-looking.  

The next day the prince got to his castle earlier than usual and heard someone coming through the forest sounding quite un-royal. One could almost say that they sounded like a pirate. As they suspected the other person has been using their castle/boat without the other one’s permission. At first the two are at a standoff, besmirching each other’s kingdom and manner of play.  

However, as the afternoon progresses the two realize that if they cast their play net higher then they’d have an entirely new arena to play in. The two new friends are fascinated by space and the prospect of having a spaceship to explore in would simply be out of this world.  

The Fort is a great example of the perfect art style that is partnered with just the right text. The art is realistic, but not too real which allows for the fanciful imagination play to really be embraced by readers. The text is such that a third grader will be able to read it easily. If the book is functioning as a read-along book then adults will appreciate that the text is spaced out along the pages. 

Some pages have as few as three short lines of text, with larger illustrations taking up wandering eye space. Other pages don’t have as many illustrations or colors, but offer more text for the story to move along. The Fort manages to tell much more of a story than it actually has on its pages due to the fact that children’s imagination will fuel it along.  

The book’s front cover design will also draw in readers. On the board there’s a tree, which is the backbone for any kid’s imagination play station. However, there’s a transparent cover that goes around that with a broken pirate ship and castle that are superimposed on the tree. That effect, combined with the overall feel of happiness and inclusion is just the sort of (children’s) book that we need, especially now.  

There are affiliate links in this post, because, imagination.