Special Delivery
When your protagonist becomes a package
Old literary adage: All great literature is one of two stories: someone goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.
At five and eight, my boys already know to count down until Amazon Prime Days. Everything on sale, tantalizing boxes arriving at the front door. This year, Prime Days brought them an awesome pedal go-kart. Wow, were they excited when its hulking box arrived on our doorstep. I could almost see the visions of zooming down the sidewalk speeding through their heads.
Deliveries can be so delightful. A delivery is an occasion in its own right. The beginning of a new story.
That’s why, when I started reading The Wild Robot Escapes, I sat up a little straighter when it opened with a delivery truck.
The Wild Robot
Peter Brown opens the first book of the Wild Robot series by describing the cargo of a sinking ship bobbing in the merciless ocean waves. Though most of the shipping crates get smashed against the rocky side of an island, one special box survives. That’s how Roz the robot gets delivered to her island and begins her adventure in finding family and home in nature.
In the Wild Robot Escapes, Brown begins the book by inviting readers to follow a delivery truck. The truck begins in the city, then readers follow its progress to the countryside, and finally to farmland. It’s a beautiful opportunity to world build, describing how robots are a part of this futuristic society as the truck progresses. All the while, readers want to know what’s inside the truck. We find out when the truck reaches a family farm. The delivery box is unpacked to reveal a refurbished robot which, of course, turns out to be Roz.
Other Deliveries
Sometimes, protagonists get delivered by moving trucks
The movie, My Neighbor, Totoro, opens with young sisters, Satsuki and Mei, bouncing in the back of a moving truck along with the family’s furniture and packing boxes. Just as in the Wild Robot Escapes, we learn about the story world while the truck trundles through farmland, eventually delivering the boxes—and the girls—to their new home.
Sometimes they get delivered by trains.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe begins with children on a train evacuating from World War II London to the countryside. Though they’re not in a delivery truck or a moving van, the sense of being transported, as opposed to choosing to travel, is heavy.
Sometimes protagonists get delivered by flying motorcycles.
Chapter One of the first book in the series is building toward the Harry’s arrival at Privet Drive. From Uncle Vernon’s perspective, we learn about the strange atmosphere in his (usually) very normal, muggle neighborhood. Then, we peer into the world of the wizards who have come to oversee Harry’s arrival. When he actually comes, bundled in a blanket, he’s being delivered by Hagrid in a flying motorcycle. A note is tucked into his blanket, and he’s literally left in a bundle—not unlike my kiddos’ go-kart, waiting for someone to open the door and take him inside.
A stranger comes to town
These aren’t just strangers arriving in town. None of these characters arrive by choice. They are crated, bundled, tossed in a van with a bunch of boxes, packed off on a train. There’s a wistful sense of abandonment and foreboding that these characters will be forced to fend for themselves. Satsuki and Mei probably wouldn’t be shoved in the back of a moving van if their mother hadn’t been in the hospital. The Pevensie children are tossed out the door in a last ditch attempt at shelter. Dumbledore ditches Harry in the Muggle world to protect him from something even deadlier than Dudley Vernon. As for Roz, she’s nothing more than a lost possession.
But the kids and the robot do learn to fend for themselves. Satsuki learns to balance self-reliance and belonging to something greater than herself. The Pevensie children become royal heroes. Harry lives up to his Chosen One prophecy. Roz the robot not only survives the wild, but becomes a mother and a friend.
Because packages are possibilities. Hope and promise— though, their promise doesn’t mean much until unpacked, tested by their new environment, and given the chance to grow as a result. Much like that delightful Amazon Prime delivery that appeared at our doorstep last week. It didn’t so much contain a go-kart, as lazy summer afternoons riding around in a pretend car that takes my boys on any imaginary adventure that they can dream up.