THE LITTLE BOOKS OF THE LITTLE BRONTËS

As children, the Brontës create their own tiny books and boundless world.

The text begins “Many years before you were born,” urging readers to “look through the window” at the rapt, rosy faces of Charlotte and Anne, two small girls. Charlotte is making an illustrated book that’s the size of a child’s palm, imagining the fortunate life of a girl named Anne. In the girls’ real life, “there has been sadness in the house for a long time”: Almost half the family has died. One poignant bird’s-eye perspective shows Charlotte, Anne, Emily, Bramwell, and their father at the dining table with empty chairs for the dead mother and sisters, though family pets sub in. (Woes like tuberculosis and the harsh boarding school the girls attended in real life go unmentioned.) The central event is their father's gift of wooden soldiers that will figure in the invented stories they write in matchbox-size books. Celebrating their free childhoods and eliding years full of struggles, the tale ends with a glance at a future when the novelist sisters “write and write.” Instructions on making a folded book are a bonus. The meticulous mixed-media illustrations are tender but never twee, as strong and lively as Yorkshire's misty air and endless moors and skies. In the images, stone structures provide solidity; domestic animals and firelit, pleasant period interiors suggest warmth. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Splendidly affirming for young readers, writers, and artists.