Eliot Schrefer

Special for USA TODAY

Summer is here, bringing with it free time and sunny weather: the perfect combo for adventuring. Eliot Schrefer looks at four new notable picture books featuring kids getting out of the house and finding some excitement.

Explorers of the Wild

Written and illustrated by Cale Atkinson

Disney-Hyperion, 40 pp., for ages 3-5

***½ out of four stars

These "Explorers of the Wild" are just your typical boy and bear. In the beginning of Atkinson’s exquisite book, the intrepid travelers go their individual ways through the wilderness, making their separate discoveries: a family of bunnies, a lizard under a log. They each get the fright of their lives when they meet the scariest thing they’ve yet encountered — each other. The two soon become fast friends and adventuring companions… until they have to part ways at the end of the day. Atkinson keeps his main characters relatively small on the page, so that we can see the real star here — the ravishing art. Each stretch of forest floor hosts a wealth of greens, from lemony to evergreen, and charming woodland creatures can be found in every nook. All talk of the bear eating any of those creatures (or his human companion!) is mercifully overlooked.

Grandad’s Island

Written and illustrated by Benji Davies

Candlewick Press, 32 pp., for ages 4-8

**** stars

Syd loves visiting his grandad’s apartment — but one day, the old man isn’t there. While Syd explores the empty rooms, puzzled, nautical visual clues will clue perceptive young readers into the high-seas adventure to come. When Syd finds his grandad, they pilot the apartment building (now a ship, in a fit of kid-appropriate make-believe) to a deserted island full of vibrant wildlife. After many grand adventures, it’s time to leave — but Grandad is staying. Davies’ gorgeous art, blocky and colorful, makes it easy to see why Grandad would want to stay in this tropical oasis. All the same, there’s the sense that Syd is saying goodbye to his grandad for the last time, which adds gentle undercurrents of grief to the story. A resonant, layered tale that will only gain in texture as its readers get older.

Are We There Yet?

Written and illustrated by Dan Santat

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 40 pp., for ages 4-8

***½ stars

"Are we there yet?" Who hasn’t heard (or asked!) this question a thousand times? With his trademark humor, Dan Santat tackles the tragic problem facing all too many kids on their way to summer adventure: car trip boredom. In this ambitious and inventive book, Santat imagines time slowing down so much on a car trip that it begins to run backwards. Then, on a trippy and logistically challenging page, the book goes upside-down and the reader flips pages in reverse as the backseat kid rides back in time, encountering pirates, jousting knights, and even a lovesick dinosaur. Once the kid figures out how to “take a second to savor the moment you’re in” because it will “help make time fly by quickly,” he overcompensates and winds up in the future, which looks suspiciously like Times Square. Plenty of frantic energy in these pages captures the fitful mind of a bored kid, and Santat is a reliable master of palette and composition.

Twenty Yawns

Written by Jane Smiley, illustrated by Lauren Castillo

Two Lions, 32 pp., for ages 3-7

*** stars

What happens when a day of adventure leaves you too riled up to sleep? Luckily, Jane Smiley (the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres) has come to the picture book world with an answer. Twenty Yawns has two tonally distinct halves: We start with little Lucy enjoying an exciting day at the beach, taking long walks with her parents and rolling down hills of sand. “Even though she got dizzy and sandy, she didn’t want to stop.” Once she’s home, though, sleep is hard to come by. Lucy lies staring at the moonlight, and has the curious and uneasy feeling of being the only one awake. Once she gets all her stuffed animals in bed with her, she finally falls asleep. Everyone in the book yawns during the long path to sleep, and the “twenty yawns” of the title are hand-drawn, inviting kid interaction — and their own contagious yawning. A picture book about falling asleep. Parents everywhere will be grateful.

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Eliot Schrefer is a two-time finalist for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature. His latest book is Rescued.