Review by New York Times Review
SPRING is for busting out and rediscovering the world, so these four picture books come along just in time to help kids do some exploring - from the backyard to overseas to underseas to outer space - and they all let the visuals lead the charge. The most adventurous of the bunch is "A Long Way Away," by Frank Viva. It's a worthy follow-up to his inventive picture book debut, "Along a Long Road," a stylishly picturesque travelogue about a bicycle trip on a meandering yellow path that eventually circles around to the front of the book for a never-ending tale. Viva further expands the possibilities of good old ink-and-paper-on-a-spine with "A Long Way Away," which can be read from front to back or back to front, each direction telling a slightly different story about a little octopus/alien on a labyrinthine journey, and its many friendly encounters along the way. When read from the front, the octo-alien leaves its family on a distant planet and floats downward, weaving through an atmosphere of playful moons, astro-dogs, airplanes and sky divers. Reaching Earth, it splashes into the ocean and descends past exotic fishes, a nifty retro submarine and a puzzled deepsea diver - finally coming to rest and nodding off on a coral reef. In the back-to-front version, the character starts on the reef, awakens and travels upward toward its home planet and the embrace of its family. As the wiggly octo-alien - equally agile in deep water and deep space - follows its winding path from one end of the book to the other, short, poetic text embellishes the action and interactions. Illustrated with the joyous aesthetic of a Matisse cut-paper collage, the story works gracefully both ways, and children will love following the character as it ventures away from home in one version, then back to the security of its family in the other. "A Long Way Away" delivers an exciting out-and-back adventure while proving there's still room for invention in the nondigital book format. In a sequel to her popular alphabet book "Backseat A-B-See," Maria van Lieshout brings us "Flight 1-2-3," a counting book and primer about airports, one of those environments that can be frighteningly chaotic to children. The book uses standardized airport signage to acquaint the reader with everything from luggage carts to restrooms, counting them from one to 10 along the way. The iconic signs appear within a simple, visual narrative about a family making their way through an airport. The family members, though drawn in the same marshmallow-limbed graphic style as the signage humanoids, are given enough flair to be expressive and entertaining. They check in, dispose of prohibited items (a baseball bat conveniently plays the role of a weapon), wait for the restroom, get refreshments and board the plane. By takeoff, we've reached No. 10, so the book switches to a few metric conversion lessons as the plane crosses the globe. In a refreshing counterpoint to the factual information and geometric visuals, the journey ends with the family welcomed and hugged by loved ones. For an educational way to introduce children to the big world of air travel, this is just the ticket. There are probably as many tricks to teaching numbers as there are numbers, and "Night Light," by Nicholas Blechman, uses three (Three!) of them in concert. First, the vehicle for his counting book is vehicles, appealing to the universal attraction that children, especially boys, exhibit for all things wheely. (I think it's primal, as demonstrated by my nephew's first words: "dubba dekka buth.") Second, Blechman, who is the art director of the Book Review, has turned counting into a guessing game - learning camouflaged as play. Third, he introduces each number in short, rhyming text alongside a corresponding number of small circles on a field of black. It's as simple as counting dots but more engaging because the dots are actually die-cut holes, so the reader gets to guess what the holes will reveal when the page is turned. For example, the number 7 is introduced with seven holes; turning the page unveils a fire truck with two headlights and five flashing lights. "Night Light" is illustrated in blocky shapes using digital art, but it ends on a warm note, showing a child's room at night with the cast of vehicles reappearing all willy-nilly around the room and, of course, a night light glowing in the corner. "Inside Outside," a wordless picture book by Lizi Boyd, demonstrates that exploration is as much about depth as distance, and that, with an observant eye and inquisitive mind, you can find a world of inspiration in your own backyard, which is exactly what the sole character does. In scenes alternating between inside a house and just outside it, we see a boy experience nature outdoors and then celebrate it indoors. Everything in his house - from pets to paintings, posters to projects - is inspired by the natural world. It's quickly clear that to this boy, indoors is a great place to reflect on nature, but outdoors - well, that's where it's at. The shifts between indoors and out span the seasons, so winter is a time for making snowmen and then painting pictures of them indoors; spring is for flying kites outdoors and starting seedlings indoors; summer is for tending the garden outdoors and making a toy sailboat indoors; and fall is for raking leaves outdoors and then staging a show with owl puppets. The line between indoors and out is further blurred by die-cut windows in the house, so even when we're inside we can watch a bird building a nest outdoors, and when we're outdoors we can see a shelf of nature books waiting for us indoors. For all of its layering and interconnections, the book has a meditative quality. The minimalist illustrations, painted with a limited palette on humble kraft paper, have the orderly aesthetic of traditional Japanese prints. Like the best wordless picture books, "Inside Outside" exercises a child's natural ability to decipher visuals; it's rich with implied associations, tertiary stories and small details to be unearthed. book, like nature, reveals more with each study, and just as the boy doesn't have to go beyond his own backyard to be enchanted, you don't have to go beyond "Inside Outside" to discover how much a picture book can do. Tom Lichtenheld's most recent books are "Steam Train, Dream Train," written by Sherri Duskey Rinker, and "Sing," with lyrics by Joe Raposo.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 26, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
In this novelty picture book that can be read both front to back and vice versa, a happy alien/squid (depending on where you begin) travels down/up each page on a voyage from deep space to deep waters, with a warm family embrace on one end and tranquil sleep on the other. The minimal text offers just a few words per page, and typical page spreads along the way can read zooming / around / over / under and offer fun path lines for kids to trace, or forced rhyming place settings like good afternoon / a lagoon. In all, it's a bit of a lark that would be easily forgettable if it weren't for Viva's ace artwork. His bold graphic designs are kitschy clean, weirdly classy, and inviting all at once, drenched in black and blue and shot through with noodles of zippy yellow that highlight the alien/squid's travels. Though there isn't much to linger over here, children will have a blast yo-yoing endlessly back and forth through the pages of this light mind-bender.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Viva's Along a Long Road featured a bicycle trip that wound through the book from left to right. With its matte paper and silkscreen-like images, his sophomore effort shares the stylish look of its predecessor, but delivers a more ambitious story. The book is meant to be read vertically, and the journey proceeds from top to bottom and back again; Viva's telegraphic writing ensures the story works just as well in reverse. On the top page, a happy alien family gathers (they look like space octopuses, with antennae and a fringe of tentacles). Their alien child starts a downward slide along a yellow path past celestial bodies (and a shoe), through the Earth's atmosphere, past a whale and school of dapper fish, and into the blackest ocean depths. "Deep asleep," the final page reads, as the alien lodges on an underwater cliff. The return trip shows the creature rising up through the ocean and back through deep space ("Under/ Over/ Around/ Zooming") before being reunited with his family: "A home/ A hug." Intelligently conceived and handsomely executed, it's a potential classic. Ages 3-6. Agent: Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-This innovative picture book is designed to be read vertically from the top down as well as from the bottom up. Starting one way, the story follows an octopuslike alien as he swooshes down from space. A yellow wiggly line traces his journey past assorted sights like spaceships and a parachuting man, down into the depths of the ocean where he falls asleep. Read from the other direction, the story starts on the seabed and follows the creature up into space and into the waiting arms of his family. The spare, poetic text works perfectly in both directions. As in Viva's Along a Long Road (Little, Brown, 2011), the illustrations were created as a continuous 26-foot-long piece of art using Adobe Illustrator. The striking graphic design features a limited palette of yellow, black, blue, red and white. This ingenious book invites many repeat readings.-Linda Ludke, London Public Library, Ontario, Canada (c) Copyright 2013. 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
From the farthest reaches of outer space to the deepest ocean on Earth and back again, Frank Viva (Along a Long Road) takes readers on a roundtrip ride. Using some now-familiar Viva motifs, especially the road that winds through the book, one little alien (looking somewhat like a turnip with tentacles and one antenna) leaves home with his parents' hug and blessing. Bathed in yellow, this alien follows that yellow paint road, making twists and turns, finally landing with a splash in the ocean, ending up at the bottom of the ocean, sleeping among the creatures. A page turn reveals a large yellow arrow pointing up -- and the reversed direction allows a return journey, words and cadence backtracking through the book until our alien is greeted by his family once again. As he did in Along a Long Road, Viva created this back-and-forth masterpiece out of one long sheet of paper -- this time twenty-six feet of it. The eye never tires of following this little turnip's path, nor marveling at what can be accomplished with a limited palette (here mostly primary colors on black). The trip is the thing here -- leaving home, seeing new planets, making new friends, and, when it is all over, returning to the loving embrace of family. Deceptively simple, this is one story a parent or child will want to return to again and again. robin l. smith (c) Copyright 2013. 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
Cleverly designed and perfectly executed, this dynamic two-way story across space, land and sea offers multidimensional adventure and possibilities. Begin on one side, and it's a journey down, away from the familiar into the deep. A warm embrace greets readers before a cephalopodlike alien descends, weaving past planets and stars on its topsy-turvy trajectory toward Earth. The appealing creature zooms by planes and towns, sea life and subs, before reaching the deep underwater world to sleep. Begin on the other side, and the alien rises from slumber, its trajectory upward toward heart and home. The illustrations recall Matisse, with their simulation of paper cut-outs, celestial quality and use of a limited four-color palette, which Viva proves can still create infinite possibilities. J. Otto Seibold and Gary Baseman also come to mind, for the work's graphic nature and loose, organic stylizations. But Viva is his own master, as he uses the constraints of the two-way format to great effect. Readers will be taken on a cosmic odyssey, while encouraged to experience a book in multiple ways--to think of a story as an interpretation, not an edict. Meticulously designed, from its art direction to the print and finish on the pages, this is a thoughtful and thought-provoking work. (Picture book. 3-6)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
