Image via Morrison
We often marvel at how children see the world, but we don’t always think to record it. One local family thought they should capture those memories.
Sam Morrison and his father, Angus Morrison, came to the realization that they should capture Sam’s then 11-year-old perspective of his travels when carpooling with one of their older neighbors.
“We spent a year in the car with three generations of guys,” Angus said. “Driving around together and telling stories. And Sam said something one day, and I thought, ‘Gosh, if we don’t try to capture what is in the brain of an 11 and 12-year-old, it is going to fly away pretty quickly.”
Image via Mascot Books
Sam and his dad brainstormed the idea of writing a book together about their travels. After a year-and-a-half of writing, they finished their book, Backpacks and Baguettes: Coloring the World Through Young Eyes, which came out in October.
“I think the book was the best way to summarize all of it,” Sam said.
The book is separated into chapters, with each chapter focusing on a different location Sam has visited. Each chapter focuses on Sam’s experiences at a destination, the food they ate and the experiences of the children there.
Sam was born in the U.S. and is half British. From when he was a toddler up until he was 11, his family lived in Paris. Sam was always willing to go on adventures with his family and being an only child made it easier for his family to go on spontaneous trips.
"You were kind of a kindred spirit. We would just give you a backpack and a passport, and you were like, 'OK, let's go.' Some kids aren't willing to do that," Angus said.
The book details Sam’s memories from travels across four continents, describing what he saw, smelled, touched and tasted, and really giving people a sense of what the experience was like. In a time when people can’t travel, Angus has seen how powerful those descriptions have been.
“It’s been really interesting getting the feedback from people saying, ‘More than ever, it’s really interesting to read this book because it is reminding me what it was like to be out in the world.’”
Even though Angus experienced the same things as his son, it was interesting for him to see how Sam perceived things. He recalls how Sam noticed that Arabic sounded much different from any other foreign language he’d heard before, or how Sam seized on the simple act of crossing the street in Vietnam.
Which, to be fair, crossing the street in Vietnam can be intimidating, he noted. The mopeds and cars don’t stop for pedestrians like they do here; instead, you have to walk assertively into traffic while it flows around you.
Both Sam and his dad love trying new cuisines, so it was obvious to them that they should include descriptions of the food they ate. Sam also saw that desires of children everywhere were different and yet the same, so it just made sense that they include those children’s experiences in the book.
Some places he has visited multiple times and others just once, but with each place he always learned something new.
“He would ask, ‘Why do they do that here?’” Angus said. “Just like a kid would.”
Angus remembers watching Sam learn in Sri Lanka that people would shake their head to mean “yes,” instead of meaning “no.”
Each chapter has some questions listed at the beginning with the intention being for friends and family to quiz each other about the location.
Another interactive element of the book includes images of street art and graffiti with other spaces left blank to be colored in. To aid them in writing the book, Sam and Angus consulted photos they took on each trip. When looking through those photos, they realized they had so many pictures of street art, and it was more interesting than any postcard.
“It’s much more real from that place because there is an actual person doing the graffiti,” Angus recalls Sam telling him.
In addition to teaching kids about the world, Sam hopes they will go out and travel one day.
“I hope that encourages people to travel the world,” Sam said.
You can order their book here, listen to them recount their adventures on their podcast, and continue to follow Sam’s future adventures on his Instagram.
