This German import is a simple play on a provocative notion, with art in pleasingly vivid hues.
In a parable both timely and ageless, a mysterious item on the forest floor excites ominous imaginings in all who come upon it.
Iranian author/illustrator Dalvand depicts trees and figures in shimmering, almost luminescent colors to make the item, a small black lump, look all the more enigmatic. A passing leopard thinks one of her spots may have fallen off, which is scary enough—but other animals’ thoughts tend to the catastrophic. To a crow it’s a piece of star that presages the sky’s imminent collapse; a fox thinks it’s a lost jewel that a murderous army is soon coming to fetch; and an owl sees it as the egg of a fire-breathing dragon. Even though a cat thinks the lump is just a bit of her “poo” and hastily buries it, the whole forest is left in a tizzy. Countering this natural tendency to think the worst, the author wonders if it’s maybe a seed, or a piece of chocolate…or perhaps something lovely and magical that readers might be able to identify? Like Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing (2005) or, going further back, Tom Paxton and Elizabeth Sayles’ The Marvelous Toy (1996), this may well stir some to ponder whether it’s better to embrace, or at least to welcome, the unknown rather than to fear it.
This German import is a simple play on a provocative notion, with art in pleasingly vivid hues. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-53019-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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