A wonderful, whimsical, poetic, and ultimately enchanting tribute to life, childhood, nature, and love in its myriad forms. Lighthearted, warm, and humorous, The Great Outdoors is a lovely, hopeful work to be experienced and explored again and again.

This is a graphic memoir that follows Catherine Meurisse after she moves to the countryside with her family. It is described as a coming of age story. However, I found the character development and story to be lacking. This book is best when it covers nature and showcases the author's artistic abilities. I enjoyed reading the factual information about the countryside and the history of the area, but I found it hard to follow and I didn't connect to Catherine or her family. I wanted to know more about them and their motivations. Though I only gave it two stars, I would still recommend this to art and nature lovers.

Advanced Reader Copy received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Sorry for my horrible english)

This is a precious graphic novel.
The ilustations, the colors and the story are equal beautiful.
The autor teels us her firstyears of life. Her family take care and live in a big land and she share with us, from her point of view, how she explore the nature and art who lives in there. In a world where ecofobic is a big problem for us, the enviroment science educators, this novel is something we need it.
I see this story like a good didactic instrument for all educators and students. I will recomended this to my fellows.

Thaks for this beautiful mastepiece.

Copia avanzada para lectores recibida por NetGalley a cambio de una reseña honesta.

Esta novela gráfica es preciosa. Las ilustraciones, los colores y la trama destacan por igual.
La autora nos introduce a su infancia muy distinta. La familia consigue un hogar al que hay que reconstruir, y desde la visión de dos niñas que están conociendo el mundo, observamos como exploran la naturaleza desde la imginación y el arte. En un mundo donde la ecofobia es un problema que preocupa a los educadores de ciencias medioambientales, leer una historia así es reparador.
La veo muy útil para trabajar temas relacionados a la ecología y el arte en todos los niveles educativos. Voy a recomendarla a mis compañeros para que la incluyan en sus listas de pendientes. Y la quiero en español.

Estoy enamorada de esta obra. Si tienen la oportunidad de leerla, no se van a arrepentir. Si les interesa la agroecología, el arte y la naturaleza, es un imperdible.
Es una lectura ideal para leer entre otras más pesadas.

The Great Outdoors is a short comic book about the childhood of Catherine Meurisse. It's a very beautiful book, with illustrations that reminded me of my own childhood in nature, all mixed with a rather particular humor (sometimes dark) and the author's memories.

Catherine moved from the city to a ruined house when she was very young, and all her childhood was spent with her parents remodeling this very old house and learning to have fun among the trees and watching the animals. It's in this new home where she finds her love for art and her imagination flies: for example her fabulous drawing of a goat posing among trees and flowers (quite fabulous, it made me laugh). The drawings are so beautiful... Sometimes I stayed several minutes looking at the details, and I really wanted to draw like that.

The author has a very beautiful way to portray her childhood: her malicious adventures, dark jokes and the discovery of her own identity

It's a very adorable story of the adventures of a girl who has a whole green world to explore. Totally recommended.

*I reicived an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free comic.*

This is a coming of age story of a young girl in the late 1980s living in rural France. It deals with the family moving places, building a home, making the garden bloom, but it also takes the industrial challenges and changes in agriculture into account. It's cute, although the talking garden gnome is a bit odd.

The drawing are superb, they capture the feelings of being outdoors, the light of the late summer and measuring time in plant growth. Even though the story was ok, I really stayed for the drawings. I also think that some jokes are lost in translation? But my French isn't good enough to retranslate it to get the jokes ("love van")? Confusion.

3,5 Stars

I'm sorry, even though I adore the countryside and that more peaceful way of life, this story just wasn't for me. It did bring up a few important issues like organic farming and preservation, which I agree with, but the overall tone and writing style just wasn't to my taste. It also had a few triggers regarding animals that I found distasteful. I ended up skimming the majority of the book.

I loved this book illustrating Catherine's life growing up in rural France. After her parents decided it would be a better place for the family to grow up she tells of her adventures as she helps her parents to create a home from the ramshackle building they move into, and while she gets used to her new environment and the freedom of the outdoors. It is detailed, amusing in parts and there are snippets of learning about history and art - all part of her story. Very readable. Thank you to Catherine Meurisse, Net Galley and the publisher, Europe Comics for an ARC.