Review by New York Times Review
"THE LINES AND VERSES are only the outward garments of the poem. ... The real poem is the soul within them." So says L.M. Montgomery's beloved Anne of Green Gables, insisting that she can call a picture a poem. If that is true, then certainly the wordless picture book is visual poetry. An artist of a wordless picture book must be meticulous, carefully using the tools of color and composition to elicit an emotional experience just as a poet uses words. Marla Frazee's "The Farmer and the Clown" accomplishes this lofty goal beautifully. It's a simple story: A child clown is marooned and then rescued by a farmer, who watches him until the clown's family returns. But the poetry lies in the story-telling, not in the story line. The book opens in a subdued landscape with the grim farmer, whose displeasure is evident when he's obliged to rescue the young clown thrown from a passing circus train. At first, the farmer and the clown seem in stark contrast. The young clown is dressed in a red one-piece, with a relentlessly cheerful, painted smile, while the old, bent-over farmer has stark black overalls and an unchanging, glum face. But when it is time to wash up, the farmer sheds his black and white clothes and reveals a red one-piece of his own. The clown's painted smile is wiped off, revealing that the child's face is actually sorrowful. The emotional resonance of that single mirroring scene is extraordinary. In fact the entire book, with Frazee's perfect pacing of images and use of negative space, light and shadow, is true poetry. As the two slowly bond (with the clown sharing in the work of the farm and the farmer attempting tricks to amuse the child), the book's title itself becomes a kind of wordplay - for truly, which of the characters is the farmer and which is the clown? Like the best poems, the book leaves the reader thinking long after it has closed. In "Fox's Garden," by Princesse Camcam, a fox searches for shelter on a winter night. After the fox has found refuge in a greenhouse, a watching boy sneaks out of his bedroom to bring her a basket of food and receives an unexpected thank-you gift. The book has breathtaking and unusual illustrations (cut-paper, lit and then photographed dioramas). Unfortunately, it falters in its poetic attempt. Like a haiku, the color palette of this book is restrained. Only the foxes and the boy are fully colored, while the white landscape has fine blue-gray line work to articulate the details. The warm glow of the lighting not only gives the artwork a delicate three-dimensional quality but also helps evoke the chills of a winter night. But as with miscounted meter, even the most lovely of illustrations cannot hide the design flaw of the last few spreads of the book: The focal points of the pictures are nearly indiscernible, swallowed up by the book's gutter. It's especially regrettable that the climactic spread, the pages that should trigger the most emotional response (the great reveal of the fox's gift to the boy), is spoiled by book mechanics. If "Fox's Garden" is like a haiku, then "Hunters of the Great Forest," by Dennis Nolan, and "Draw!," by Raúl Colón, are perhaps more like epic poems. "Hunters of the Great Forest" is almost a traditional hero's-journey story, as a group of tiny hunters travel in search of their surprising and funny prize. There is a whimsical, fairy-tale feeling to the art, which is reminiscent of Johnny Gruelle's classic Raggedy Ann books. The cunning, red-nosed characters are captivating; one of the most exciting spreads of the book features the creatures simply creeping in a darkened vista with their elongated shadows attached to them like black insects. But the book's greatest charm and poetic achievement is in offering a new point of view. The detailed world of these bug-size creatures is immediately enveloping; readers will nervously begin to imagine dangers in the textures of the tree bark. The frightening realities of being minuscule in a big world are, however, counterbalanced by the great joys of a small pleasure at the end (no spoiler here!). "Draw!" tells of a journey as well: the inward journey of an artist's creativity. A young boy, alone in his room except for his book about Africa and some art supplies (and medicine on the side table, hinting at a stuck-in-bed illness), begins to draw. He is soon transported into his imagination, and as he becomes engrossed in his fantasy African world, Colón's loose pen-and-ink sketches transform into fully rendered pictures. These images are rich and glowing; one can almost feel the warmth of the sun and the nubby fur of the giraffes. Yet the delicately scratched lines and texture of the colored pencil on paper never let the viewer forget the artist's hand, creating a lyrical balance of fantasy and reality that is ideal for a book celebrating artistic expression. The book's theme of the power of art to befriend, pacify and inspire, while not unique, is still a poignant one. In an author's note, Colón recalls his own childhood memories of drawing alone in his room. By illustrating this actual experience with sketchy lines that contrast greatly with the fully rendered images of his fantasy, Colón suggests what many artists, writers and, of course, poets know in their own lives: an imaginary world even more fully realized than reality. GRACE LIN is the author and illustrator of many books, including "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon," a Newbery Honor winner. Her new book, "Ling and Ting: Twice as Silly," will be published in November.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 5, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
On wide, wordless pages, a fox leaves a snowy wood, looking for a warm spot near a little boy's cozy home, but his parents try to shoo it away. Undaunted, the rusty-red fox settles for the nearby greenhouse, and when the kind, inquisitive boy goes to check on the animal, he discovers that she has had a litter of kits. He quietly leaves them a basket of food and returns home to climb back in bed, but the mama fox and her babies remember his kindness, and before they go back to the woods, they leave a towering bouquet of flowers from the greenhouse on his bedroom floor. The sweet story is carried along by Camcam's gorgeous, intricate cut-paper dioramas, all of which are delicately highlighted with minimal, thin blue-ink strokes on snowy white paper and warmly lit from within. The careful lighting in each photographed illustration adds a remarkable depth of field, leaving corners of the woods in shadow and the houses suffused with glowing, pale orange light. A dreamy story perfect for bedtime.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Starred Review. An act of tender compassion is given (and repaid) in secret during an icy winter night in this memorable addition to the Stories Without Words series, the U.S. debut for this French artist, born Camille Garoche. The story concerns a sleek, rust-colored fox seen darting through a gnarled forest of pale lavender trees beneath swirling snowy skies. Drawn to the orange glow of a building in the distance, the fox is shooed away by the man and woman who live there, before taking shelter in their greenhouse. A small boy, whose red sweater perhaps serves as an early signal that he's an ally to the ruddy fox, sneaks outside to deliver a basket of food. As he sets it down, the full scope of his kindhearted action is revealed: the fox has four tiny kits snuggled under its bushy tail. Camcam creates her images by assembling cut-paper dioramas, which are then lit and photographed. The resulting images possess a subtle dimensionality while the story exudes a haunting winter magic and a strong sense of the way a small kindness can make an enormous difference. Ages 3--8. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Starred Review. PreS-Gr 1-In this wordless picture book, a fox enters a small town, looking for shelter. She is chased away by villagers but eventually finds refuge in an abandoned greenhouse. A little boy finds the fox and gives her and her newborn pups a basket of food. The fox family then returns the kindness by planting a magical garden inside the boy's room while he sleeps. The story is brief and simple enough for toddlers, but the beauty of its artwork will capture a much wider audience. Camcam's cut-paper illustrations add to the mystical elements of the work. The boy's bedroom is particularly impressive, with three-dimensional furniture and detailed toys; every item in the room looks as fragile and delicate as the wonderful magic that the fox has given to the boy. The panoramic style of the pictures makes this title ideal for a lap-sit storytime, and it will be a delight to read and to share.-Peter Blenski, Greenfield Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2014. 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
While his parents show only disdain, a boy is intrigued by a fox who takes up residence in the family's greenhouse. Later, the boy's quiet act of kindness yields an unexpected reward. With invitingly short and wide dimensions, this wordless book from France stands out for its exceptional, inventively lit illustrations of one snowy evening. (c) Copyright 2014. 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
Flowing lines and subtle shifts of hue add visual grace notes to this wordless tale of gifts exchanged between a boy and a fox. Slipping sinuously through a snowy forest, a fox approaches a village and, after getting a hostile reception from adults, takes refuge in a greenhouse. A boy sees this and later creeps outside to leave a basket in the greenhouse as the fox, suckling four newly born kits, looks on. Later still, mother fox and kits climb into the sleeping boy's bedroom to leave an astonishing bouquet of larger-than-life flowers before silently departing. In the paint-and-cut-paper illustrations, leafless trees, finely decorated houses and even the flowers in the greenhouse are rendered in wintry blues and grays that make the glow of lights seen through windows seem achingly warm but remote. This contrast also adds a deeper warmth to the identically russet coats of both fox and boy, the only other real touches of color. Each scene is composed as a diorama and photographed, giving the illustrations an uncanny solidity and depth despite their paper-cutout origins. The oversized flowers invite thinking of this imported episode in symbolic or metaphorical termsbut it needs no analysis to be lovely. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
