(++++) GETTING HERE, GETTING THERE

What a Map Can Do. By Gabrielle Balkan. Art by Alberto Lot. Rise x Penguin Workshop. $18.99.

     Maps are everywhere in life today – and nowhere. With the rise of cellphones and GPS-enabled car tracking systems, people are using maps more than ever in their daily lives, whether to explore an unfamiliar area or to pin down the closest neighborhood pizza shop. But today’s maps are mostly just part of the electronic background, simply apps into which users enter requests for the information they want and from which they get instructions on how to find the place to which they want to get. Map locations are “factoids,” similar to what users find when looking up details on a favorite movie or TV show or sports event. And as in looking up those other tidbits of information, users do not really think about how a map gets them what they want to know and takes them where they want to be. Some sort of primer on understanding maps would be a big help.

     What a Map Can Do is that primer. Gabrielle Balkan attentively and attractively delves into the basics of how maps work, with Alberto Lot’s amusing cartoon illustrations making map-following an enjoyable journey no matter where the maps may take young readers. These are old-style non-electronic maps, the sort people still encounter in specialized situations here and there.

     A smiling young raccoon is readers’ guide to what maps are, how they work, and what they do, explaining how a map can give information on anything from a very small space to a very large one. The raccoon first presents a map of his room that “shows where the important things are, from above,” and asks readers to take part in using it by pointing to his stuffed animal – which, the map indicates, is on his bed. Then he shows a map covering a larger area: his whole house. On this map, each room is labeled, and kids are asked to find the gray toilet in the bathroom, the scooter in the hallway, and other things in the raccoon’s home.

     Widening the perspective still further, the raccoon next offers a map of his neighborhood, explaining where on the map his house is located and how readers can plot the path from the house to the playground, figuring out how many other houses they will pass on the way. And so it goes, page after page: there are maps of so many things – the city, a bus route, a museum and more. Balkan and Lot do a fine job of showing the different ways in which maps are used in different circumstances: to find a bus stop, for example, and to locate specific exhibits within the museum, and – on a larger scale – to figure out how to “travel from one city to the next, one state to the next, and even one country to the next!”

     What a Map Can Do is also helpful in some unexpected ways. At one point, the raccoon narrator offers “a map of the inside of my body” as he explains that a map “can show us things we cannot see,” such as the path that the animal crackers on which he is snacking “will take to get from my mouth to my stomach.” The map key in this particular case shows where to find bones, brain, heart, stomach and the swallowed snack. Elsewhere, on a visit to a National Forest, the raccoon explains that “a map can show us what to expect,” such as easier and more-difficult trails to follow, longer and shorter ones, and so on. And he points out that maps are not just used for physical locations that someone may want to explore: a weather map “shows us if it will rain or snow or hail or shine in our area,” and a star map “can help us understand the sky.” It is significant that there is not an electronic map in the entire book: the basic maps are the old-fashioned paper kind that fold up and then open out to reveal whatever they are designed to show. Given the reality that electronic maps likely dominate most kids’ and families' experiences today, it is refreshing to have a book that goes back to basics and shows the purposes for which maps are made and the ways that maps created on paper can be used. In fact, paper maps can do one thing that electronic ones never can: readers who remove the book jacket will find that the book’s actual cover shows a paper map folded into airplane shape and flying across the page. Just try that with an app!