Review by New York Times Review
A FAMILIAR PLACE, a pungent smell, the distant chatter of children's voices: You never know what might arouse a childhood memory, a moment of pure sensation as you recall hours of playful abandon. Four new picture books featuring children absorbed in creative worlds of their own making are likely to evoke such memories in their grown-up readers. Children lucky enough to encounter these books will not only enjoy them, they may even be inspired to find a slow day, roam through their imaginations and make something - the simplest of pleasures. "This Is My Dollhouse" is the story of two girls and two dollhouses. One of them, our narrator, is at first alone with her dollhouse, which she built herself, out of a cardboard box, along with all the things inside. Her dollhouse family is diverse: a bear, three dolls and a mouse. Through her evocative text and illustrations, the author-illustrator Giselle Potter ("The Year I Didn't Go to School," "Tell Me What to Dream About") invites the reader, too, to partake in making fried eggs, noodles, bandages, an elevator and a rooftop pool. Soon the narrator visits her friend, Sophie, who has a dollhouse too, but one that is manufactured, plastic and perfect. This dollhouse family is staid and expressionless. The two girls' playtime becomes scripted and stiff, and while the storyteller attempts inventiveness, Sophie is resistant. The narrator goes home, sadly thinking Sophie would never like her homemade dollhouse. So when Sophie visits later, she hides it. But Sophie finds it under the blankets, leading to an afternoon of imaginative play. Now it's Sophie who is sad when it's time to leave. "This Is My Dollhouse" celebrates the best of free play, capturing what it's like to be fully engaged and inspired. While Potter might have made the line between the two friends' styles of play seem less absolute, the charming illustrations have their own voice. Her ink and watercolor paintings are familiar and friendly, making it easy to slip into her world. This is Potter's distinguishing strength. She has even cleverly included illustrated instructions for dollhouse making on the inside of the book's dust jacket. This final detail mimics the scene when Sophie finds the storyteller's hidden dollhouse, allowing the child reader his or her own secret discovery. Brianne Farley's "Secret Tree Fort" follows two sisters, an older, serious one and a younger, frolicking one. The older reads a book as her sister tries to entice her to play: "I have a secret tree fort and you're not invited!" We see a rope ladder dangled hopefully out of the secret fort. When the older sister still declines, the spirited little sister embellishes the offer, with the text and illustrations building to show the fort with a water balloon launcher, a second floor with a trapdoor in the roof for stargazing and a basket for snacks and other emergencies. Soon there are monsters below, flags to fly, a lookout perch, a pirate ship, an underground tunnel, whales and a refrain: "Don't you wish you were invited?" At last, distracted from her book, the older sister looks up and says, in a grownup voice, "That doesn't exist." The little sister replies, "Fine! I made it up." As she sheds a tear, her older sister softens. "Maybe we just need to build it," she says. A collaboration begins as they draw plans for a tree fort together. Farley's illustrations consist of elements that vary stylistically: The sisters are painted in spare poses, the landscapes are fluid and the younger sister's imaginary world is rendered in childlike outlines of red, expanding in color and depth as the fantasy tree fort becomes more elaborate with each new description. Creating a world of one's own as a child is the beginning of our stories, Farley shows - and is sometimes made more vivid when shared with a sibling or friend. In "A Dark, Dark Cave" Eric Hoffman builds his story with a rhythmic, unbroken cadence: "The pale moon glows/as a cold wind blows /through a dark, dark cave." Bats and other scary features of the repeated "dark, dark cave" appear as the story builds to a "Roooaaaar!" It's only then that the reader discovers two children on an adventure inside a cave constructed of blankets. Dad appears, saying: "That's too loud, kids. Find a quiet game. The baby's sleeping." There is a moment of thoughtful consideration before the two children continue their play: "Two horses run/in the bright, bright sun/to a blanket barn,/wearing manes of yarn,/playing happily/in what used to be / a dark, dark cave." Corey R. Tabor's offbeat, expressive illustrations work wonderfully to support Hoffman's text. Tabor's palette begins with a deep, dark tonality as each child illuminates the way with a flashlight. When Dad opens the "dark, dark cave," the colors change. When the children become horses playing in the "bright, bright sun," the pages are suddenly filled with light and air. The book's second surprise is created through colors, as the reader finds the children are still inside the house - but in a sunny new world they've invented. The loosely rendered endpapers, featuring overlapping patterns of fabric in blue and white, suggest a trove of blankets that will tempt any child to build a cave of his or her very own. Jane Yolen's "What to Do With a Box," illustrated by Chris Sheban, is a book made of soft words and soothing visuals. Yolen and Sheban work in tandem: Rather than giving directions, Yolen's minimal text and Sheban's dreamlike illustrations only suggest how the book might be read, and where things might go from there. They give the reader inspiration without instruction, allowing for the endless possibilities of creating with a cardboard box. Sheban's use of cardboard as the surface for his paintings nods to the simplicity of the idea. His filmy illustrations in paint, watercolor and pencil show just how easily a box can transform into a library, palace, nook, car or boat - journeys to take, places to go. The final pages urge a child to begin the hunt for an empty box to work with: "A box! A box is a wonder indeed. The only such magic that you'll ever need." Books like these are wonders, too. LIZI BOYD is an author and illustrator of picture books including "Flashlight" and "Big Bear Little Chair." Her new book, "I Wrote You a Note," will be published next year.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 19, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Beginning with Sheban's trompe l'oeil cover illustration, Yolen's latest picture book charmingly captures both real life and imaginary adventures. Starring a bespectacled girl, a red-haired boy, and, at center stage, a big cardboard box, the book is written in spare but appealing rhymes, and illustrated with great skill and cleverness. Using watercolor, colored pencil, and white acrylic paint, Sheban created all of the pictures on actual cardboard, effectively immersing young readers into the experience. Yolen's text suggests a variety of ways that kids can use such a container: it can be a place to read books, to play with a friend, and to make art (You can paint a landscape with sun, sand and sky / or crayon an egret that's flying right by). It can also be a vehicle for make-believe (You can drive in that box all around a dirt track. / You can sail in that box off to Paris and back). Tagging along on these escapades is a watchful but sweet-looking dog, and Sheban's use of unusual perspectives makes the interactions between the kids, the box, and the dog entertaining to examine. The book's final page, featuring the familiar words this end up turned into the end, is another nice touch of thinking outside the box.--Nolan, Abby Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Nothing sparks a child's imagination quite like a cardboard box. This book enumerates a variety of possibilities for this deceptively mundane container. When a boy, a girl, and a dog explore the uses of a large box, Yolen suggests it can become a library, a palace, a canvas, a boat, a car, or a plane. Sheban's acrylic, pencil, and watercolor illustrations are painted directly onto cardboard, its beige color and texture peeking throughout the softly glowing spreads depicting the box's many incarnations. Despite the rhyming text mentioning various fantastic prospects, the box itself remains unchanged, even as it's employed to tow an overturned Eiffel tower or fly through the air. VERDICT Though not as imaginative or charming as Antoinette Portis's Not a Box (HarperCollins, 2006), this is a sweet story that could be welcome in collections where books about imagination are in demand.-Yelena Alekseyeva-Popova, formerly at Chappaqua Library, NY © Copyright 2016. 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 Kirkus Book Review
An ode to cardboard, four sides, and flaps both honors and alerts children to the pleasures it houses. Jolly rhymes sing praise, perhaps prompting readers to look near their recycling bins for a fresh box. What else can be "a library, / palace, / or nook"? Add some dolls, and you've got a tea party. Paint a backdrop, and you're basking at the beach or sitting by a forest stream. Put simply, "A box! A box / is a wonder / indeed. / The only / such magic / that you'll / ever need." The succinct, straightforward simplicity of Yolen's singsong-y verse suits its subject: the everyday, plain-old, big-brown box. Sheban's inviting artwork, painted and drawn atop real corrugated and flat cardboard, makes clear the magic that happens when introducing imagination to an ordinary packing box. Warmth, depth, expanse, and humor all reside in his paintings, which show a red-haired white boy and dark-haired, slightly darker-skinned girl playing inside a box, their own illustrations and creativity at work. Sheban imbues the cardboard-box brown that covers and constitutes so much of these pictures with a honeyed amber that almost glows, especially alongside strokes of white acrylic paint that highlight each spread. Intuitive, inspired executions of art and verse perfectly capture the unending fun of time spent inside a box. (Picture book. 3-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
