INSIDE, INSIDE, INSIDE

Stilted text and a convoluted concept cause this latest effort from Meade to flounder. In conversational-style text, a sibling pair creates an imaginative game in which they start with a minuscule object and place it into subsequently larger and larger containers, beginning with a small marble and ending with everything inside a clothes hamper tucked inside a shower. Mead then segues from the children physically manipulating the objects for the game to letting them illustrate the concept in elaborate drawings that eventually expand to encompass the Solar System. The idea and game are clever; however, their execution in a picture-book format for young readers simply does not work. Preschoolers will soon be lost under the weight of the wordy text and older readers—who could really embrace the concept—may be put off by the format and illustrations oriented towards a younger audience. Truly a book caught betwixt and between, this is hard put to be placed inside any category. (Picture book. 3-8)