The Tunnel

Sometimes bad things happen and children have their own way of processing bad things. In The Tunnel author Sarah Howden along with illustrator Erika Rodriguez Medina explore the need for a quiet, safe space to process.

The narrator tells us something bad has happened. They want to get away from the questions and the concern so they dig a tunnel, all the way outside. They realize they could just leave, go away and never come back. They see their mom and know that tonight is not the night to leave.

Sarah Howden has created a timely loving story about feelings. Sad feelings are hard to process and even harder to understand. By giving us a first person narrative, the story feels more alive, more visceral and easier to understand. Readers are invited inside the mind of the child, to empathize with what is going on. Although we aren’t told what the bad thing is, we understand, through Sarah Holden’s prose, that it’s the kind of bad where you just need a quiet, safe place to process. I liked how we are not told about the bad thing, it makes the book more universal. Any child who is going through a bad thing can see themselves in the pages and feel comforted by the actions of the child.

Erika Rodriguez Medina’s illustrations are perfectly evocative of the feelings of the child. Gray scale illustrations punctuated by the red of the child’s shirt, we know that the bad thing is something that is consuming the child and making the world seem bland and dark. I especially loved how she illustrated the tunnel with all of it’s creatures. The spreads are simple, with sweet little beetles and moles but make the story a little hopeful, other animals going about their jobs, there is a comfort in their work.