Review by Booklist Review
Pinfold lures readers into a story aswirl with mystery, dust, and darkness in this unusual picture book. The photo-realistic illustrations instantly set the scene with a rocky desert and a battered, white car into which four siblings pile, the oldest behind the wheel. The youngest, a girl in a pale blue dress, narrates the strange events that follow. Readers glean that the siblings are traveling to meet their mom. Where? It's not clear, but they pull over to gather flowers for her. Their flower-picking leads them to a white, palace-like structure, where the boys quench their thirst from its spring despite the girl's warning. Too late, they fall under the palace's spell, leaving the girl with the difficult task of saving them. Snippets of an eerie rhyme and the presence of a talking lion bestow a folkloric quality to the story, which also calls to mind Chris Van Allsburg's Jumanji. It walks the line between dream and nightmare, leaving many questions in its wake, but also creating a haunting journey that readers won't easily shake.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Four white-presenting youths on the road follow a poem to their peril in this dark desert fantasy from Pinfold (Greenling). On a car trip with her three brothers, the narrator suggests they pull over and pick flowers for their mother, whom they're headed to visit in a hospital. When one brother sings the first line of a nonsense rhyme ("White roses we follow, toward Teller's hollow"), and another follows, the fragments hint at mischief to come: the girl follows her siblings into a vast, forbidding edifice, where they drink from a spring, eat from a marvelous feast, dive into a pool--and turn into dolphins. The girl wants the family to be on their way, but the smooth-tongued lion who oversees the place has other ideas ("You belong here"). He promises to restore the brothers to human form if the girl does not eat or drink for three days--then taunts her with a sumptuous banquet. The girl keeps her promise, but a small misstep invokes a curse that eerily suggests a connection to the past. Chilly, precision-drafted spreads with dazzling architectural motifs confer gravitas on this haunting fairy tale centering a steely character who remains resolute in the face of trickery. Ages 5--9. (Nov.)
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Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 4--6--The story begins with a six-line poem under a small, rectangular image of a tough, leafless tree with white blossoms. The slightly overexposed, photorealistic style continues throughout, as a girl and her three older brothers drive through a desert landscape. The four leave the car to pick flowers for their mother, but the boys run off, reciting lines from the poem, leaving the girl to follow them into a silent, massive building, where they unwisely drink, eat, and are therefore trapped. The girl, cleverly, does not eat or drink, and makes a deal with a huge lion called the Teller to get her brothers back. She keeps her bargain, and the four reach their mother, who seems to be staying in a medical facility (bed with wheels, no decorations); from the girl, the mother intuits what happened on their trip. The whole story has the haunting, ominous feel of an old, dark fairy tale; in the illustrations, which have a bleached quality, the human characters are often dwarfed by the landscape, buildings, or animals. VERDICT This spare, atmospheric book may require some book-talking to find an audience, although it could be used in a unit on fairy tales and legends.--Jenny Arch
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Review by Horn Book Review
Pinfold (The Black Dog, rev. 10/12) presents another surreal picture book, this one with shades of such folktales as the Grimms' "The Six Swans" and Andersen's "The Wild Swans." Driving through the desert to pick up their mother (from what looks like a medical care facility), four siblings leave the main road to stop in the heat to pick flowers for her. The three older brothers recite rhymes from their youth ("White roses we follow / toward Teller's Hollow"). Despite their sister's warning, the thirsty brothers enter a stark, silent building in search of a drink of water, where they fall under the spell of a giant mystical lion, the Teller, and are transformed into dolphins. Only the resistance and tenacity of the sister, the youngest, who endures a battle of wills with the Teller, allow the siblings to escape. Themes of determination, family traditions, and love are manifested in the words and images. The washout-desert palette in the hauntingly beautiful realistic mixed-media illustrations creates an eerie sense of foreboding (carried through to the ambiguous ending) that cues readers into the otherworldliness of the story. Three consecutive double-page spreads depicting a sumptuous banquet (the sister's charge is to eat or drink nothing for three days) are especially mesmerizing. Masterful use of light, spot color, and scale mark this as a significant piece of bookmaking; pair with early Van Allsburg titles such as The Garden of Abdul Gasazi. eric carpenter November/December 2022 p.69(c) Copyright 2022. 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
On a car trip to visit their mother, three brothers and a sister are lured into a mysterious palace. The initial, stark white page includes a small illustration of a wizened tree with white blossoms. An ominous, prophetic rhyme warns of Teller's Hollow ("A sip from the chalice, we enter his palace / Break bread for the Keeper, now we descend deeper…"). Three ensuing pages of wordless, hyper-realistic, full-page illustrations rely on a palette of Dust Bowl colors, showing, first, a slight young girl exiting a dreary stucco house and entering an equally dreary, occupied whitish car; the car then winds its way through a desolate desert. As the car pulls over, the brothers spot flowers and pick some for their mother. When they come upon a fantastical palace, the brothers, hungry and thirsty, eat and drink the food they find; the girl alone resists temptations in this odd realm ruled by a lion called the Teller and populated by dozens of other animals. At last, the girl safely shepherds her brothers to the stark institution housing their mother; more mysteries arise. This is a strange tale, laden with ambiguities. However, herein lies the appeal; succinct, carefully chosen text and hauntingly beautiful artwork create a story that demands that its readers return to each page, trying to figure out answers to questions whose answers exist only in readers' imaginations. This mesmerizing work offers potential jumping-off points to discuss many topics, including magical realism, symbolism, family relationships and roles, and mental health. Characters are light-skinned and dark-haired. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Drink from this chalice. (Picture book. 7-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
