Adele & Simon
by Barbara McClintock
Imagine letting your kids wander city streets alone for a few hours after school. No cell phones, no nannies, no idea where they are or what they're up to.
Not in a hundred years, right?
Yup.
McClintock takes us back a full century to Paris at its fullest glory, when the Impressionists were still alive and the colorful streets teemed with activity (instead of traffic) and cheerful kids could meander for hours. How different from our own anxious, overscheduled age!
Big sister Adele picks up a smiley Simon after school, who's schlepping a full rucksack and the usual cold-weather garb. Since this is pre-Ritalin, he's allowed to be what we once called a typical boy: irrepressible, funny, smart and a complete ruffian. He's off in a dozen directions at once, losing a scarf here or crayons there as he drags his sister through a leafy, sepia-drenched Paris and one gorgeous full-bleed spread after another.
We're launched on a “Where's Waldo”-style hunt for all those missing items, which get stuck in trees or a baby carriage or who knows where. I was quite pleased with myself for finding most of them, even as I empathized with Adele's mounting exasperation.
McClintock used pen and ink to recreate this wondrous city at its most vital, then filled it in with watercolors. Each spread looks like a period print or vintage postcard, even down to the choice in typeface. Hers is an idealized fin de siecle Paris, where parades just happen by and acrobats pop up and Edgar Degas is available to hunt for those missing crayons (end notes fill in some must-know facts).
I've made three trips to Paris and can tell you the Jardins du Luxembourg hasn't changed a bit, and the Boulevard St. Germaine looks just so, and the Louvre and Notre Dame and the bistros and courtyards must absolutely be exactly like this. Only I never noticed two schoolchildren taking the long way home, wending their way through the crowds, misadventures in full swing.
Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.
Rating: *\*\*\*\
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