Having a Wonderful Time

Having a Wonderful Time by Pohrt reads as a post-card home, sent by a little girl who (imagines) that she travels with her cat. The story is so imagistic that you cannot help but see Eva reading through a world atlas on a rainy day and letting her imagination run free. With her cat, she travels through deserts and sands of time, through beautiful cities full of whimsical surprises. The paintings - delicate and detailed - are rather like small pictures one would send with a letter or postcard while travelling abroad. Wry, witty, and very worth acquiring for the simply beautiful and detailed artwork, this is a book that any child should have, and let us all hope that we too can remember what is like to be young and to dream - and let it never end.

Eva and Sam one dark winter day book passage on a zeppelin to a place far away and warm and after many days arrive at a beautiful city, with the sea on one side and in the distance a wide open desert. The travelers rent the last hotel room only to discover it is occupied by insects playing raucous dominoes. Sam and Eva's adventures begin in earnest when a camel offers to guide them across the desert. In the desert, they meet lions and bees and follow directions to the Crocodile Cafe, where it becomes clear they are to be the next day's luncheon special. In the end, lions, bees, and crocodiles behind them, Eva and Sam write post cards to their friends with the title message: Having a Wonderful Time. Tom Pohrt's early work invites comparisons with N. C. Wyeth. The new book is as vivid and original as THE NIGHT KITCHEN OR THE 100 AKER WOOD. Jim Latimer, author of GOING THE MOOSE WAY HOME.

This is a delightful kids' book. The drawings are filled with life and wonder, especially the one-eared cat. A treasure.

If you love the children's books of yesteryear, you'll adore this book. Pohrt takes you back to a time when children's books painted the world as a beautiful and mysterious place for a child to explore. This is one your children will want to look through over and over.