Review by New York Times Review
THESE FIVE new picture books are humansize stories made by human hands. The evidence: raw brush strokes, bleeding paint, pencil marks left untouched. Somehow that makes all the difference as the young characters in these stories try to find their way into the confusing adult world. The handmade artistry of these books helps to illuminate and animate children's feelings of wonder, loss and determination. THE STORY in JiHyeon Lee's wordless DOOR (Chronicle, 56 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8) starts on the frontispiece: A boy finds a key. A strange little insect leads him wandering among gray, drab people to a cobweb-draped door, apparently unopened for years. On the other side, they enter a land of blossoming trees, fantastical creatures, polka-dot food. The boy slowly sheds his grayness for pink, red and green. A bit Alice in Wonderland; but, truly, JiHyeon Lee, who gave us the delightful "Pool" (also wordless), is a unique and wildly imaginative talent - an original. The illustrations, in pencil, are whimsical, reserved, buoyant, childlike, expert. In a remarkable sixpage layout of doors and doors and doors, we see worlds connect and intersect as creatures enter and exit, laughing, playing, even getting married. Language (dialogue is drawn in nonsense squiggles) isn't a barrier. Neither are appearances. This land is a joyous celebration of differences and likenesses and harmony - and so is this magical book. how could you not love a deliciously pink elephant named Poe? Unfortunately, the townspeople of Prickly Valley do not. In POE WON'T GO (Disney-Hyperion, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8), written by Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by Zachariah OHora, a rather large elephant has plunked himself right in the middle of the only road in town. This is a delightful children's fable in the form of a humorous news story. The colorful illustrations look like retro linocut prints, while the hand-drawn text brings to life the atmosphere of panic in Prickly Valley. The townspeople try everything to get rid of Poe: They attempt to bribe him with cheese, they hire a magician to make him disappear, they tie a hundred balloons to his limbs. The mayor arrives with her committees and councils and Styrofoam cups and real-life politics. In the end, throwing everything at the problem does not solve it - a little kindness does. It comes in the shape of a small girl, Marigold. She saves the day by asking Poe why he won't go (in elephant of course). For the first time, Poe smiles. Marigold puts her ear to his forehead, listens carefully, then explains, "He's waiting for a friend." The friend is a monkey wearing a polka-dot tie. Poe tips his black fedora and leaves with the monkey on his shoulder. At the end of the story, the reader is asked, "I wonder where they'll go?" (Let's hope it is a wonderful place where animals gather in dapper getups.) CARMELA FULL OF WISHES (Putnam, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8) is the second collaboration between the author Matt de la Peña and the illustrator Christian Robinson following the beautiful "Last Stop on Market Street," which won a Newbery Medal. In this one, it is Carmela's birthday, and, for once, she is allowed to help her big brother outside with the chores. As she push-scooters after him jingling her bracelets, they pass a flower vendor's van, a corn-on-astick (elote) stand and a Mexican bakery. We are in the streets of an immigrant neighborhood where hope and hardship mingle. It is a decoupage world, with muddy colors, sketchy details and brush stroke backgrounds: a child's painting. The visuals, like the story, have a more muted and somber tone than "Last Stop on Market Street," but it is moving in similar ways. Among the street's cement paving stones, Carmela finds a lone dandelion. Her brother tells her to make a wish. Her wishes are cleverly illustrated as papel picados, Mexican hand-cut paper banners. At first, she wishes for a machine that spits out candy. On second thought, she wishes for her father's immigration papers to be fixed (so he can, finally, come home). She wishes for her mother to be pampered like a guest at the hotel where she works. Carmela drops her dandelion, and its spores scatter. She is distraught. She imagines her wishes and hopes will be lost and destroyed. Her brother, who is mostly irritated by Carmela, shows his true colors by taking her to the shore, where the sky is filled with dandelion spores and soaring white birds. A place of abundant wishes. THE ILLUSTRATOR CORINNA LUYKEN helps bring Marcy Campbell's characters to life in ADRIAN SIMCOX DOES NOT HAVE A HORSE (Dial, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8). Chloe is determined to prove that Adrian Simcox, the lonely daydreamer in her class, is a liar. He has been telling "anyone who will listen that he has a horse." Finally, after simmering for days, she bursts out (while hanging upside down from the monkey bars) to the whole class (including Adrian Simcox) that he does not have a horse. Adrian Simcox is devastated. The next day, Chloe's mother takes her to his house. He lives on the wrong side of the tracks with his grandparents. He plays alone in a decrepit, overgrown yard. Chloe wants to call him a liar again, but instead - she asks him about his horse. By using his imagination, Adrian Simcox comes to life and dreams of a better one. Luyken depicts nature as a wild whirlwind that eventually envelops the characters. She has a charming drawing style, but she also brings a jagged, emotional charge to the story. It is the charge of Adrian Simcox's imagination - where the horse lives. Chloe is stubborn and willful, but she listens and learns and understands. Her first-person narration is realistic, witty and endearing. Chloe wants a series. This heroine is ready for more adventures. IN LIZA JANE AND THE DRAGON (BlackSheep, 32 pp., $16.95; ages 4 to 8), a first children's book written by the novelist Laura Lippman and illustrated by Kate Samworth, Liza Jane has a not-so-unfamiliar problem: Nobody listens to her. Least of all her parents. So she fires them and puts up a wanted sign for new ones. Like Mary Poppins, a dragon answers her ad and gets the job. "Liza Jane and the Dragon" feels as if it were written in the 1970 s, and it has the colors and the clothes and, of course, the psychedelic monster to go with it. At the start, Liza Jane and her fish, Swimmer, are the only characters who are colored in. Everything and everybody else is a sepia-wash background. The dragon brings excitement - color, fire, pizza every night - but he is not "Puff." He is destructive and lazy. His only response each time he loses his temper and burns another part of the house to a charred crisp is, "Well, I'm a dragon." That's a reasonable argument. We cannot change the essential nature of people or animals - especially mythical ones. Living in an untidy, charred ruin and sick of pizza, Liza Jane gets rid of the dragon and rehires her parents (now in color, too). This enjoyable book delivers a lesson, and its playful drawings invite the young reader into a wonderful place somewhere between fantasy and reality. JUMAN MALOUF is the author and illustrator of "A Trilogy of Two."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 11, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Chloe's very skeptical about the stories Adrian tells about his big, beautiful horse they live in a city, his house and yard are small, and she can tell from his clothes that he doesn't have a lot of money to spend on such an expensive hobby. When her skepticism turns mean and she hurts Adrian's feelings, her mother brings her to Adrian's house, and seeing him in his own environment helps her finally see his perspective. Luyken's dense illustrations feature expressive, crisply rendered figures set against lush backgrounds of sketchy, overgrown plants and fronds in warm autumnal tones, and in those backgrounds readers will see what Chloe struggles to notice until the very end of the book: Adrian's horse lives in his vivid imagination. Luyken hides horses in overlapping foliage and negative spaces early on, but it's not until Chloe stands in Adrian's yard and listens to him describe his horse that she finally sees it and, sweetly, she inadvertently helps shape it with a branch in her hand. A moving story about developing empathy, with beautiful illustrations to pore over.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Chloe scorns the stories that her classmate Adrian Simcox tells about having a horse since she knows they can't be true: "He lives in town like me, and I know you can't have a horse in town." In warm, expressive ink-and-watercolor spreads, Luyken (The Book of Mistakes) paints Adrian, who "gets the free lunch at school," speaking excitedly to rapt schoolmates. Adrian is lying, Chloe announces, and she sees that her words have "made Adrian Simcox really sad," but her resentment persists. Then, while walking their dog, Chloe's mother steers her toward Adrian's neighborhood ("All the houses looked like they might fall down"), and the two children meet in Adrian's garden, where Chloe realizes that, horse or not, Adrian has something rarer: the power of imagination. Newcomer Campbell explores with sensitivity the way Chloe opens her heart to Adrian, but the story's perspective-privileged child learns to value less-privileged child-may limit readership and group use. Luyken's delicate drawings add welcome depth, culminating in a final scene that makes magic from a tangle of weeds in Adrian's yard. Ages 3-5. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-Chloe just wants the truth to come out about daydreamer Adrian Simcox and his tall tale of having a horse. He tells everyone at school about his beautiful pet and its white coat, golden mane, and gorgeous brown eyes, but Chloe knows it's all lies. You can't keep a horse in town, and besides, Adrian gets free lunch and has holes in his shoes. When Chloe's Mom has finally had enough of her daughter's indignation, she takes the child to visit Adrian's part of town, where Chloe learns that going along with a fantasy isn't so bad. While this tale offers a moral, it's not preachy; instead, debut author Campbell has penned a gentle, enjoyable story about accepting your friends as you find them. The story finds its perfect accompaniment in Luyken's The Book of Mistakes with this book's muted, fall-tone ink, colored pencil, and watercolor illustrations of Chloe and Adrian's school and homes, the town's beautiful foliage, and, of course, the beloved horse that's brought to life by the children's imaginations. VERDICT This warm tale and its exquisite illustrations is well worth a purchase.-Henrietta Verma, Credo Reference, Jackson Heights, NY © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Chloe doubts Adrian's imaginative claims that he owns a horse, considering he receives free lunch at school and has worn-out shoes. Expressive sketch-style illustrations rendered in ink, colored pencils, and watercolor feature mainly yellow and earth tones on abundant white space. The art pairs nicely with the thoughtful narrative to capture Chloe's transformation from mean-spirited skeptic to friend. Hidden equine figures provide additional interest. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A young girl named Chloe learns that, sometimes, it's more important to be kind than to be correct.The book opens to loosely drawn children of various ethnicities casually sitting around a long cafeteria table. Pale-skinned, carrot-topped Adrian Simcox sits far to the right, staring off into space. Text set above him declares: "Adrian Simcox sits all by himself, probably daydreaming again." The next spreadparents and children waiting for a school busshows the white narrator looking irritated as she witnesses Adrian telling "anyone who will listen that he has a horse." Chloe has used logic to figure out that Adrian is lying, and the text pulls no punches as she rattles off some of the ways she can tell Adrian could never afford to own a horse, including "the free lunch at school" and holes in his shoes. Chloe notices that Adrian looks sad after she finally accuses him to his face of lying, but it is her mother's ingenious use of showingnot tellingthat brings Chloe to a new level of understanding. The tale is poignant and at times slightly humorous as well as frankly didactic. The art is an excellent complement, adding such dimensions as Chloe's mother fixing a bike; contrasts between Chloe's and Adrian's respective school desks and neighborhoods; brushy foliage that repeatedly reveals Adrian's imaginary horse.A good conversation starter for use with children who share Chloe's privilege. (Picture book. 4-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
