MARVELOUS

A boy struggles to focus on anything other than building things in Hoffman’s picture book.

Marcus is a little boy with a mop of curly black hair and brown skin. He loves to build things with blocks, pencils, library books, sticks, and rope; if Marcus can touch it, he can create something with it. The trouble is, Marcus’ penchant for making towers, bridges, rocket ships, zip lines, and palaces distracts him from doing other important things—like math, spelling, and playing with the other children. Ms. Anderson, Marcus’ teacher, asks the class to design a blueprint for a new school playground. When it’s time to present their designs, everyone shows off their drawings, except for Marcus; he has built a whole marvelous model of a playground. Mello’s digital cartoon illustrations are brightly colored and show Marcus’ myriad of marvels and the materials from which they were cleverly engineered, providing detail for the story. The prose is measured in describing the external world of daily life, but when Marcus gets a new idea, the pace picks up speed: “As he pulled out his pencil, the blocks in the corner caught his attention. // Suddenly, his busy brain shifted. // He got out of his chair, a builder on a mission. // He was inspired!” The story’s conclusion stands out for its celebration of Marcus’ unconventional worldview.

An inclusive embrace of a brain that was built for building.