Customer Reviews

Roxaboxen (Picture Puffins)

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I love this book! It reminds me of summer, when mom had to beg us kids to come inside after a long day of imaginary play in our 'pine-tree village'. What fun we had creating homes, shops, schools, using rocks, pinecones and anything else we could find to make our little village like home. This book is so similar I could just eat it up! It tells the tale (a true one at that) of a group of children who create their own village with rocks and boxes (get it? Roxaboxen?). The thing I love about this book are the illustrations---simple, yet beautiful, and of course the wonderful story of how the children used their imagination and creativity to create a timeless adventure. In this day of gameboys and computer games, this book is a refreshing change of pace. My four year old loves this book as much as I do, and we can't wait to create our own Roxaboxen this summer. Buy this book for your kids...or yourself! You won't regret it!

This was my absolute favorite book as a child: I loved imagining the world of Roxaboxen as the children who 'lived' there did and I loved creating my own Roxaboxens in my world. Alice McLerran's kids taught me how to make my own places and times and adventures in my own universe. The entire book was so beautiful that I still smile whenever I see kid's books and remember my favorite or when someone asks me what my favorite book from childhood was.

Roxaboxen will allow adults to relive their childhood experiences, while allowing chilren to expand their imagination. Children will realize that their imaginary friend or place is a wonderful memory.

Roxaboxen is a lovely story about a childhood playground created by the author's mother, her mother's siblings and her mother's friends.

While children will enjoy the pictures and may get some great ideas for building their own Roxaboxen "town", adult readers are the ones who will truly treasure this story. Its sweet nostalgic look at childhood is a catalyst for our own stories and memories to return. Cooney's pictures are appropriate and enjoyable but subdued.

Overall, a nice memorial to the real Roxaboxen and its residents.

There are eight characters in this story; Marian, Anna May, Frances, Jean, Charles, Eleanor, Jamie, and Paul. Marian, who likes to take charge, named a rocky hill, Roxaboxen. It was really just stones and sand with some wooden boxes, but the children made it their special place. That had round black pebbles that they used for money. They made a street called Main Street first. Everyone made their houses out of white stones. They used the wooden boxes for tables or anything else you wanted. They would also try to find pottery to use as dishes.
As time went by, they made a town hall. Marian named herself the mayor, which no one mined, just as long as they were having fun. They also added more streets as time went on. With bits of sea-green, amber, and amethyst, Frances made herself a new house. The children decided to have a bakery and ice cream stands. Jean and Anna May ran the bakery and Paul and Eleanor had ice cream stands. They also have a jail if you are caught speeding with your car. If you had a horse, you could go as fast as you wanted.
They had a war; boys against the girls. If you reached your fort, you were safe. Roxaboxen also had a cemetery. They only had one animal in it, which was a lizard. Roxaboxen was always there for them, even if it was the winter when nobody went. Then they got older and moved away. Did anyone come back to visit Roxaboxen? Is Roxaboxen still there? Read the book to find out. Ilove this book because when I was younger I loved to imagin things like this. My friends and I did things similar to this book.

This wonderful, masterful story celebrates and honors child's play. The quiet music of McLerran's text tells of a hill where neighbor kids made, out of colored glass and round stones, a pretend town with houses and stores. I remember me and the neighbor kids outlining floorplans with swaths of cut grass after the mowers cut the field behind oru houses, which was the grounds of our elementary school. Like that play, Roxaboxen lacks a conventional storyline. Instead, the book is just about playing, about meeting with 6 or 7 of your friends and creating a place and obeying only the streams of imagination.

Cooney's illustrations for this book are among my favorite in any children's book, and they are certainly my favorite of hers, which is saying a lot. Alternately dusky and vivid, full of glossy shade, glittering flashes, autumnal contrasts, her paintings gleam with the magic of this kid-made place and its serendipidous doings.

Plus, the kids are from an earlier age, all elderly now but remembering it as part of their childhood, so the book really reaches across generations, revealing to your child that your own mother and father, your child's grandparents, were once giddy with play, too. The fun of these retold capers and gatherings makes me want to stake out a new field and carouse like I'm 7 again, and what better treat--and honor--can you imagine than reading your child this grinning, melancholy commemoration of their own manner of joy.

This book should be read by every one young and old. I though it was wonderful. I have been longing to own it but it is fun reading it at the library in a big comfy chair. I suggest that everyone reads it.I am 12 years old and still Love it.

I spent last weekend in Santa Fe, which reminded me so much of the beautiful Arizona desert I grew up in. This got me thinking about one of my family's favorite picture books: Roxaboxen. Roxaboxen is a celebration of the imaginary world that children often live in, and a great reminder to adults that sometimes all a child needs is the chance to play outdoors.

Roxaboxen takes place in a desert where, at first glance, the landscape appears to be quite bare. But it is not bare to the children who live there. For them, Roxaboxen is a place that through the power of make believe, turns into a magical world. As the children outline the streets with stones, the town begins to grow and grow. There's a main street, a town hall, a bakery and two ice cream parlors. ("In Roxaboxen you can eat all the ice cream you want.") The children build houses, which start off quite plain, but take on more and more rooms as time goes on. There's a jail and a cemetery in Roxaboxen, but the only grave is that of a dead lizard.

In Roxaboxen, everybody has a car; all you need is something round for a steering wheel. But you'd better watch out, because there's a speed limit for cars and if you don't mind it, you'll end up in jail. Even better, everyone has a horse. All you need for a horse is a stick and some kind of bridle. (And there's no speed limit for people on horses!)

Barbara Cooney's illustrations lend the perfect touch to Roxaboxen. She captures the essence of the desert perfectly. In particular, I love the ocotillos with the brilliant red flowers at their tips and the colorful desert sky at sunset. It whisked me right back to my own childhood in Arizona.

You can see that Roxaboxen is a "quiet book." On the one hand, there's not a lot going on, and yet there's so much going on. I love this book because it celebrates a childhood filled with play, instead of one filled with "things." My kids all loved Roxaboxen when they were younger. I think it's a book that will inspire your kids to go outside and create an imaginary world in your backyard.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I read it to my 5 and 2 year old children, and they each sat through the entire story. In fact, once it was over they grabbed it from me to look at the pictures.

There was one thing I didn't like about the book, and it's only because it provokes a lot of questions from my 5 year old(has to do with the lizard). So, if your child has a tendency to ask lots of questions, you can skip that page. Otherwise, this is an excellent choice, and I'll read it again.

Roxaboxen was one of my favorite books growing up as a child. I used to pass by Roxaboxen almost every week and we (me and my siblings) would play games just like in the story. It is a fun-loving and imaginative story that all kids and adults should read. The illustrations are incrdible and the book reminds me of when I was a child. A great read for all ages.