Lynn: I am writing this post as I start the second week of self-isolation and as I do, I am thinking about how differently I am already seeing my world. Some things matter more to me and some seem completely irrelevant. I don’t know how much we will be changed by the events of COVID-19 but I suspect that many of us will feel an even deeper commitment to caring for each other and caring for our world. I loved Henry Cole’s book, One Little Bag: An Amazing Journey (Scholastic, April 2020) the moment I read it. Now, two months later, I find I love it even more for several reasons.

This is the story of a little brown paper bag, first used to bring home a flashlight a single dad buys at a store with his young son. Keep on eye on that flashlight because it will appear almost as often as the little brown bag that gets used and re-used and used again as the wordless story continues. The bag next holds the boy’s lunch. The father has drawn a red heart on the bag and in the small vignettes that follow the bag is used in a variety of other ways, holding marshmallows for a camping trip, music for guitar practice, and tools to repair a first car. The bag goes off to college with the boy, holds a wedding ring, a bear for a new baby, and checkers for a game between a grandson and his grandfather. This cycle of life tale ends with a heart-melting scene in which the paper bag holds a new tree planted in the forest to celebrate a life.

Cole’s style and detailed illustrations have always enchanted me, offering new rewards with each reading. There is most often an underlying sweetness to Cole’s work too that never fails to please along with a welcome dash of humor. Those things are strongly at work in this new book too. Each exquisitely drawn page holds clever details, the sweetness of life’s ordinary and special moments and a lot of smiles. While the book is wordless, there is a message that comes through strongly about the importance of taking care of each other and taking care of the planet, and of re-using what we have. In a time when so much feels out of our control, this story and this message seem more important every day.

Cindy: I may have to use my stored paper bags for toilet paper if the hoarding doesn’t abate. I haven’t been able to buy a roll since this COVID-19 emergency started. I grew up with a mother who was born during the Great Depression and we reused everything. Plastic bread wrappers were rinsed out and clothespinned to the kitchen curtain rod to dry and reuse. So this book, with its creative journey of one paper bag, is dear to my heart and will be to yours, as well, once you’ve read it. Henry Cole’s work is well known, and his talented art is on full display here. Six double-page spreads show the journey from a tree in the forest through the manufacturing of a paper bag to its use at the grocery before we even get to the title page. Working in three colors, his black ink drawings feature touches of brown as the bag comes to life and small red hearts are added to the bag, one by one, through the years of use. These color choices keep the focus on that bag.

While reading this book, I suspended belief as the bag lasted through generations…that’s one tough bag. But then I read the Author’s Note and learned that Henry used a paper lunch bag for three years of school…and then willed it to a friend who used it for another year. He was moved by the events of the first Earth Day in 1970 to reuse that bag. And reuse it he did. This book will publish just a few weeks ahead of the 50th anniversary of that first Earth Day. What a great book to have on hand to remind us of the importance of conserving our resources.