From the January/February 2001 issue of The Horn Book Magazine

Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Acceptance

by D. B. Johnson

ow long does it take to walk thirty miles? If you look closely at Henry’s friend’s pocket watch, you can figure out that Henry did it in twelve-and-a-half hours. I’ve been on this illustration hike for thirty years, and I think I’ve finally reached my blackberry patch. Thank you, Boston Globe-Horn Book Committee, for this award and this very special moment. Thank you, Houghton Mifflin, for your generous support, especially Margaret Raymo for believing in this book and Stephanie McLaughlin for putting together my book tour.

I’ve had so much fun with this book that I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Maybe it’s because when I turned fifty, everyone I knew was obsessed with retiring. Friends talked about their investments and their retirement funds, and I’m sure they were wondering what I was doing. I was doing art and re-reading Walden. I got to the part where someone asked Thoreau why he didn’t save money and take the train to Fitchburg to see the country. He replied that he knew better. Taking the train would require him to work the better part of the day to earn the fare. By walking he could leave now, arrive in Fitchburg before night, and “see the country” all day.

This whole idea of walking to get where you want to go resonated with my life. It was Thoreau’s way to be his own man, to stay close to nature, to be a writer. It was my way to be an artist. By living in the country and keeping my needs small, I didn’t have to choose between getting a high-paying job or doing art. I could start my day with a walk in the woods and end my work day when the kids got home from school. When they were young, we made reading the center of family life and gave up TV. My studio was my kids’ supply closet. I can hear my wife still: “You let them use your X-acto knife?!!” In my book, Henry’s friend says, “Enjoy your walk,” and Henry replies, “Enjoy your work!” I’ve been lucky enough to do both of these things. Maybe it’s taken me longer to get to Fitchburg, but I’ve enjoyed every minute of the hike.

So Thoreau’s proposition that walking was the fastest way to travel became my idea for a children’s book called “Mr. Thoreau Takes a Walk.” I wrote that title on a piece of paper and dropped it in my idea file. Over the next two years I added notes to it. This description, for instance, of Henry by Emerson:

He wore a straw hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to brave scrub-oaks and similax, and to climb a tree for hawks’ or squirrels’ nest. He waded into the pool for the water plants, and his strong legs were no insignificant part of his armor.

And this description by Franklin Sanborn:

[He had] . . . a ruddy, weather-beaten face which reminds me of some shrewd and honest animal’s — some retired philosophical woodchuck or magnanimous fox.

I tried drawing him as a woodchuck. Too small. Too domestic. A fox? Too flamboyant. To me, Thoreau was a bear: large, free roaming, independent. I drew him with a large-brimmed hat and a heavy coat that emphasized the long body and short legs of a standing bear. That’s when my character became Henry, and the story became Henry Hikes to Fitchburg. This was for children. A playful narrative that would capture the wry eccentricity of Thoreau. When it came down to it, Henry knew how to have fun. I wanted this book to reflect that fun, and to draw kids to other gentle ideas: it’s okay to be different; you can get where you want to go without money; we’re all part of nature; keep life simple.

As soon as I knew what Henry looked like, it was easy to know what he would do. And, of course, I had all of Thoreau’s writings to tell me what birds and animals and flowers he saw along the way: the whippoorwill, the woodchuck, Joe Pye weed. I sketched the houses in Concord, Massachusetts. A lot of this book is from my childhood: climbing trees, finding snakes in stone walls, blueberrying. Growing up on a New Hampshire country road in the 1950s was probably closer to what Thoreau saw than Route 2A from Concord to Fitchburg today. And anyway, Thoreau avoided roads whenever possible.

As author/illustrator I created the whole book at once, what to say in words, what to say in pictures. I drew each bear’s day in a series of facing pages — snapshots that contrasted and compared what each was doing. Money versus miles, time against space. I purposely put similar objects and ideas in each picture to smooth the flow and add meaning: Henry’s friend’s broomstick is matched against Henry’s walking stick. Some of the relationships are simple and obvious: Henry’s friend climbs on a table; Henry climbs a tree. Others are for the pleasure of adults: Henry’s friend carries water; the water carries Henry. Sometimes the horizon line, or a tree, or a fence in one picture can be seen overlapping into the other.

I enjoy pointing all this out when I read to kids. At one reading a lively three-year-old named Jordan sat on the floor in front of me. As I turned each page, she slid closer and closer, looking at the pictures. When I got to the page “Henry hopped from rock to rock across the Sudbury River,” she jumped up, pirouetted in front of me and said: “And then Henry gets out of the water and shakes himself aaallll ooover till he’s dry. Then he gets dressed!” Well, that was a very special moment. That was the moment I realized that, despite all my efforts to fill my book with plants and animals and people and ideas, there was still some empty space between the pictures. There was still space for children to fill with their great imaginations.