#695 of 1001 · June 26, 2022

When you were a child, did you ever just start digging, convinced that buried treasure lay somewhere beneath your feet? Perhaps you think that now you’re all grown up and you know better. But perhaps you had the right idea from the beginning. Here’s the gently amusing, faintly mysterious Sam & Dave Dig a Hole, written by @macbarnett and illustrated by @jonklassen. Two boys decide to start digging a hole, eager to find something spectacular. They move through the earth, traveling down, sideways, diagonally, and then down again. Unfortunately, in every direction they narrowly miss a series of large, brilliant gemstones—unseen by them but blatantly obvious to the reader. Ultimately, they fall through a hole and plummet into a mysterious abyss, which leads down, down, down, until they land right back in the spot where they started. Or do they? The landscape seems subtly different. Their original hole is nowhere to be seen, and a number of subtle environmental changes are visible: a pear tree stands in place of their apple tree, a blue daisy has replaced a red tulip in the flowerpot, their cat has a blue collar instead of a red one, and their house has a duck weathervane instead of a chicken. What is going on? Have the boys dropped into an alternate universe? That determination is left to the reader. Barnett’s straightforward text and Klassen’s understated illustrations (a blend of colored pencil and digital technique) combine for an atmosphere of deadpan humor and metaphysical enigma. #dig #hole #underground #treasure #treasures #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookillustrations #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks