In-Between Places
by Alex Killian; illus. by Grady McFerrin
Primary    Chronicle    40 pp.
4/25    9781452172798    $17.99

The in-between places, we learn, are neither here nor there. They “are not up or down, not in or out. They’re not all the way to one side or the other.” Killian (This Table, rev. 3/24) goes on to describe what in-between places can be: bridges and ladders; staircases and slides; a long, dark tunnel; dawn and dusk; and even dreams. On one spread, a bus full of people goes in one direction while bicyclers determinedly go in another; you’re “between where you’re going and where you’ve been.” McFerrin’s imaginative illustrations make the most of Killian’s open-ended musings. Full-bleed double-page spreads, saturated in bold colors, provide detailed scenes to pore over, from the everyday (a car trip) to the adventurous (a descent by parachute; a hot-air balloon ride) to the fanciful (a dream’s make-believe animals). Many images emphasize forward motion such as a spread showing a child mid-launch from a tire swing into a body of blue water. As the text says, eventually you might “choose…to leap!” which can “lead to just where you wanted to be” or “to more in-between places…or somewhere unexpected.” There is a world of possibilities. Pair with two other recent contemplative picture books: Völker’s Are We There Yet? (rev. 9/23) and Schwartz’s Head Full of Clouds (rev. 3/25).

From the July/August 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.