PINOCCHIO, THE BOY

Poor Pinocchio: suddenly everyone, even his friends, is treating him very oddly. Why? Because the Blue Fairy turned him into a boy as he slept, and he hasn’t noticed yet. Scattering snowflakes across postmodern pagescapes defined by computer-assisted collages of fragmentary printed matter, towering architecture, and kaleidoscopic arrays of geometric forms, Smith follows his sadly confused ex-puppet on a trek through densely urban “Collodi,” where he’s pushed out by shop owners, tossed off the very puppet stage on which he’d so recently triumphed, and even ignored by his old buddy, Cricket. At last, the despondent lad spots Geppetto on a giant-screen TV and returns home, where the motherly Blue Fairy waits to explain matters. Pinocchio’s joy fills an entire, explosive spread. Like his collaborations with Jon Scieszka (Baloney, Henry P., 2001, etc.), Smith tweaks a classic—or, in this case, its final chapter—for a wild, arty spin-off; though children may be more familiar with the film than the fiction, both characters and context will need no explanation. (afterword) (Picture book. 8-10)