Susan Bartlett (1)

An engaging story about a young boy struggling to decide just where he stands, on the issue of hunting - his own family are not hunters (his mother is a vegetarian, his father a super-market shopper), but his best friend's family are - Opening Day is, at its heart, a tale about friendship. Sam, determined to make up his own mind, applies for a hunting license, and joins his best friend Eric, and Eric's father Mr. McCundy, on their Opening Day deer hunt. But when he spies his first deer in the snowy woods, he begins to wonder whether he really wants to shoot any animal. Can he withdraw from the hunt without hurting Eric or Mr. McCundy's feelings, or will his discovery that hunting is not for him destroy his relationship with his best friend?

Although I do not believe that hunting is necessarily wrong - I find sport hunting barbaric, but believe that responsible subsistence hunting is ethically acceptable - I do not come from a hunting family or community, and I do not think I have ever picked up a hunting story for children, save those that occur in some historical period. In all honesty, I probably wouldn't have picked up Opening Day, were it not published by one of my favorite small independent publishers, the Maine-based Tilbury Books, and were I not trying to read their entire children's catalogue. I'm glad that I did, all told, because I think it addresses an issue far broader than the choice of whether or not to hunt, or the theme of hunting in rural communities. What it's really about (or, at the very least, what it communicated to me), was the idea that it is possible to be friends with, and respect people who have very different philosophies about life from our own, and who have very different lifestyles. This is something I think our society is really struggling with right now, in so many different ways, and I think it's a very positive message. As someone, moreover, who was raised by parents who allowed me to make my own moral choices, I also really appreciated the fact that Sam's parents, although they clearly have views of their own, let him come to his own conclusions.

Susan Bartlett has given readers something to think about, with this calm, respectful picture-book, and for that I thank her. I imagine that the story related here will have particular significance for young readers growing up in rural communities where hunting is a fact of life. Whether or not they themselves are hunters, they'll probably recognize something of themselves and their community in this story.… (meer)