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
In this wordless picture book, a bearded farmer is alarmed to see a young clown tumble out of a passing circus train. The farmer takes the lost big-top performer home and feeds him, but then, as they wash their faces before bed, the young clown loses his makeup and his moxie. The next morning, the farmer works hard to cheer up the boy by making funny faces, and the boy enlivens the farm chores with a series of tricks. Eventually the circus train passes again, and the boy and the farmer rush to get the little clown back to his clown family, who clearly miss him. Frazee uses a muted color palette that matches the quiet, gentle mood of the story. Her simply drawn characters with minimal facial features beautifully convey emotions, particularly when the dour farmer has more pep in his step after he and the clown go separate ways (but trade hats first). Little ones will delight in the farmer clowning around to the last page, which promises a fun surprise for the old man.--Kan, Kat Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Frazee (Boot & Shoe) crafts an affecting wordless narrative about a solitary man and his unexpected visitor. The action transpires on an austere gray-brown prairie beneath a dust-colored sky, where a frowning farmer watches a colorful circus train bouncing along a rough track. The slim, white-bearded farmer, dressed in a somber black hat and overalls, is startled to see a knee-high clown ejected from the caboose. The slouching farmer approaches the clown, who mimes the accident and rushes to be comforted. Back at the farmer's cabin, the clown washes the paint off his face, revealing a mouth turned down in a child's sorrow. The next day, the farmer cavorts to cheer him up, improving his own mood in the process; the companions milk a cow and juggle fresh eggs, to the dismay of four hens. Frazee expertly paces the story in sequential panels, implying the grandfatherly man's growing tenderness for the lost child. The circus train's return feels bittersweet until readers observe that the farmer will not be alone for long. A gorgeously executed account of the power of companionship and compassion. Ages 4-8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Frazee's controlled palette of subdued golds, browns, and grays offers a fitting backdrop for the hard-working farmer foregrounded in this wordless tale. Bent over his wheat, he misses the drama above as sweeping cloud formations bleed off the page. A swiftly moving circus train on the horizon introduces color and an unexpected visitor, when a bump on the tracks ejects a young clown. Exuberance meets quiet responsibility as the whirlwind in a red one-piece, the small clown, embraces the legs of the old man. Their similar silhouettes invite comparison, while their hats (one black and wide-brimmed, the other red and conical) suggest contrast. Hand in hand, they enter the farmhouse, where softly textured gouache and black pencil scenes in panels of varying shapes and sizes depict shared meals and ablutions, a protective night watch, and unanticipated antics as rust-colored long johns seem to conjure the farmer's playfulness. The bond, conveyed visually through mirrored motions, continues to develop until the train returns. Readers will wonder how to feel in the penultimate scene until they notice a clown with a black hat waving from the caboose, and the final page contains another surprise. This is a tender look at light and shadow, the joy and comfort in companionship, the lift that laughter provides, and the friendship possible among generations (and species). The poignant relationship calls to mind the quiet potency of scenes in Raymond Briggs's The Snowman (Random, 1978) and Sarah Stewart's The Gardener (Farrar, 2007). Lovely.-Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library (c) Copyright 2012. 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
Appearances can be deceiving in this superb wordless book from two-time Caldecott Honor recipient Frazee. At sunset, a grim-faced, pitchfork-wielding farmer comes to the rescue when a circus train hits a bump and ejects a jolly-looking toddler clown. The contrast is almost comical: a tall elderly man wearing a frown and a flat black hat holding hands with a miniature clown wearing a painted-on grin and a pointy red hat. At bedtime, the two wash their faces, and off comes the clown makeup, revealing a scared and vulnerable child and wiping away any hint of humor from our tale -- for the moment. In Frazee's pencil and gouache illustration the characters are arrestingly transformed: the child now clearly unhappy and the farmer's softened features registering concern. The next morning, the farmer reveals a playful side as he essentially makes a clown of himself to get a real smile from his young guest. When the circus train returns later that day, the body language of the new friends expresses a powerful clash of emotions: the child's ebullience brings both his feet off the ground, while the farmer, earthbound, stands stock-still and stoic. The two exchange hugs, wave goodbye, andhow the heck can Frazee break readers' hearts like this? Never fear: as the farmer walks pensively away, viewers see that he's being followed by a circus monkey, who gestures to us not to tell -- surely a tip of the hat to Rathmann's classic (and also wordless) Good Night, Gorilla (rev. 7/94). Using only pictures, Frazee's book -- both spare and astonishingly rich -- offers a riveting narrative, characters to care deeply about, and an impressive range of emotion. jennifer m. brabander (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
A solitary farmer on an empty plain receives the most unlikely visitor. A tall, scowling farmer labors with a pitchfork on an endless brown field. In the distance, surprisingly, a steam train crosses the horizon. As the train chugs off the edge of the spread, a jolt propels something off the caboose. The startled farmer sets out in that direction. He finds a small clown, wearing white makeup, a red-and-yellow costume and a broad smile. The clown deftly pantomimes having fallen off the trainaction and emotion shine wordlesslyand the farmer takes him home. Silently they stare at each other, eat and wash their faces. Without makeup, the child-clown's smile disappears; is he sad to lose that connection to his home-train, or had the smile been made of makeup all along? With growing tenderness, the farmer watches over his sleeping guest and, come morning, hops and dances to cheer him up. They juggle eggs and share real farmwork until the circus train returns along the distant tracks. Its shape and primary colors make it look like a toy, especially against the soft, textured grays and browns of the farm, skies and earth. Using gouache and black pencil, Frazeea virtuoso of mood and linetakes the surly farmer through bafflement, contemplativeness and true affection.The beauty of an unexpected visit, done beautifully. (Picture book. 3-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
