Title: Cousins
Author: Mary Ellen Brown Carlson
Publisher: Toplink Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-950256-85-3
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book
Pages: 26
Reviewed by: Beth Adams

Hollywood Book Reviews

It is said, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family,” but when your family members are your best friends, you are certainly blessed. That is the feeling one gets from reading Cousins by author Mary Ellen Brown Carlson and delightfully illustrated by artist Wes Bossman.

In this book, where real names of the boys are introduced and used, making the adventure seem as if it was in fact based on a true story, two pairs of brothers – cousins – all go into the woods behind their Grandparent’s house for a camp-out evening in their tent. Sometime during the night, while the boys were all tucked into their sleeping bags, they heard a noise outside the tent. Upon peeking out, they discovered a big bear is right outside their tent – scaring the boys into a quiet sense of fright. Once the bear leaves and the coast is clear, so do the campers; quickly packing up their stuff and returning back to the safety of their Grandparent’s cabin. The story ends with them sleeping peacefully in their bedroom. This too will be the final act of those children being read this bedtime story; as they will close their eyes and drift off knowing the safety and comfort of their own beds.

The sequences of illustrations have a unique style which is quite artistically original, utilizing a texture of lines within the colored images, offering an interesting visual accompaniment to the theme of the storyline. As an epilog treat, at the end of the book, the author added a dozen captioned photographs of the real characters in the book, herself included, along with the tent, and tractor, showing the people and the artifacts in their family history in its black-and-white splendor.

Cousins is certainly a keepsake relic for the Carlson family and all of their tentacles of bloodlines, but through the graciousness of Mary Ellen Brown Carlson, everyone is now invited into their “extended family” via the enjoyment of this book. As the universal theme of camping in the woods along with inherent risk of meeting up with a bear, Cousins will take youngsters’ imagination into the deep, dark woods for an adventure they certainly won’t forget.

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