Review by New York Times Review
ONE RISK OF RAISING bookish children: You create little shut-ins. No matter how blue the sky, how warm the day, how the susurrations of leafy trees beckon, they want to stay in the dark, cool house and read. I should know. I was one. "Put that down and go outside," I often heard, along with a lot of importuning about the benefits of fresh air. Four new picture books bring the outside in, taking young readers on adventures in illustrated forests. Strange, inscrutable creatures live there. These are unruly tales that conjure mystery and a little fear, bringing the wildness of nature to the cozy couch. The sensory pleasures of the woods are on display in "A Walk in the Forest," a quietly beautiful book written and illustrated by Maria Dek. Simple prose describes the "wonders" and freedom that await among the trees: The chance to "find treasure," "follow footprints" and "shout as loud as you want." Dek's illustrations are warmly colored and full of movement - birds wheeling in a sun-dappled canopy; another flock flushed to the sky (possibly by that loud shouting); the hind quarters of a deer leaping out of the frame. Shifts in perspective abound. One spread shows a wooded pond from the viewpoint of a bird above. The next shows ticklish pond weeds and a blissful pair of submerged feet. These clever visual leaps show how small and how big the forest can feel, and how many different places the forest can be. One of those places is "a little scary." As the book progresses it gets wilder and darker. Our hero encounters birds with "secrets" and an imperturbable fox, animals nestled in their woodland burrows, nightfall and the wide eyes of an owl in a dim, piney tableau. He retreats indoors and watches the night woods from the safety of his window. "You'll go there tomorrow," Dek concludes, "when you're older." Forest animals are the main characters of "Deep in the Woods," a vibrant modern retelling of a classic Russian folk tale from Christopher Corr. Rendered in electric hues - neon coral, Starburst pink, Jolly Rancher orange - against cool, unusual grounds of lilac, aqua, violet and periwinkle, the book looks more like a delectable candy box than anything photosynthesis would produce. "Deep in the Woods" is alluringly strange. It tells the story of a white, wooden house in a forest, with "nine neat windows and a red front door." The house stands "empty, cold and sad" - until some woodland creatures happen along and make it their own. A mouse, a fox, a lavender bunny, a swooping speckled owl: Most of the animals have eyes shaped like human ones, which make them look more sophisticated - knowing, mischievous, sometimes sad - than your average picture-book fauna. This diverse menagerie keeps house together until a big orange bear ambles along and wants in on the action, causing first strife and heartbreak and then - after some light woodworking to make a house that will fit his lumbering frame - rejoicing. There is a lesson here - about friendship, and sharing - but the book never feels plodding or pedantic. Its rhythms are as surprising as its vivid hues, full of small but powerful subversions of kid-lit logic: The animals show up in bunches, not page by page; there are a dozen or so creatures crammed into those nine neat windows. What's more, there are no grown-ups here. The animals are peers: They create their own society, and resolve their own conflict. Which may be why the lesson just goes down like the truth. If you were to accidentally rake "The Gold Leaf" into an autumn pile, you could be forgiven. The book, written by Kirsten Hall ("The Jacket") and illustrated by Matthew Forsythe ("Do Not Open This Book"), takes almost all its hues from nature. It is awash in wonderfully earthy yellows, greens and browns. The only surprise in this palette is gold itself. Hall's grandfather was an expert gilder who applied gold leaf to buildings across New York City, and the technique is used in the book's pages, lending a metallic glint to this tale of what happens when something covetable and shiny - a leaf made of actual gold - sprouts unexpectedly in the forest. The animals don't handle it well. First a warbler, then a chipmunk, then a mouse, then a deer take the gold leaf because they can. A fox grabs it because "if everyone else wanted it, well then, he did too." As the leaf passes from claw to nibbling mouth, it crumbles, until "tattered and torn, it lay in pieces at the animals' feet." The shredded leaf disperses in the wind, and the animals pass the rest of the year back at their usual forest pursuits (not a bad fate, given the subdued beauty of Forsythe's richly textured murk). Then spring brings a new gold leaf - and the wisdom to leave some of nature's mysteries alone. "Little Fox in the Forest," the authorial debut of the children's book illustrator Stephanie Graegin ("The Lost Gift"), is a wordless but action-packed adventure that uses comics-style panels to advance its narrative. It would be an intriguing title for a young reader to try on her own, although the threat at the heart of its story - a lost lovey - may evoke a primeval fear for kids and parents alike. Our heroine brings a beloved toy fox to class for show and tell. Thanks to Graegin's nifty panels, in which an array of old photographs serves as a flashback, we can see this has been a tender companion from when she was a babe. But at the playground after school, a real fox sneaks out of the forest to snatch his stuffed doppelgänger. Despondent, the girl sprints after it, followed by a concerned pal. In the woods, the duo find a secret world: tiny doors in trees, a soda fountain just for animals -and the culprit, a young fox enjoying story time with his new toy. Our protagonist makes a surprising decision about what to do next, one that will give young readers something to ponder. After all, what the forest offers children is independence, and a sense of what it might be like to grow up. Of course, that's something reading can offer too. JULIA TURNER is the editor in chief of Slate.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 24, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Illustrator Graegin makes her authorial debut in this wordless picture-book adventure. Through cyan-blue paneled scenes, delicately rendered in pencil, watercolor, and ink, readers watch as a young girl gets ready for school and receives instructions to bring something old and treasured for show-and-tell. The girl immediately knows what she will bring: her beloved stuffed-animal fox. After school the next day, the girl plays on the swing as a real red-faced fox eyes her backpack from the bushes. Quick as, well, a fox, it snatches the toy from her bag and dashes into the woods. The girl follows the furry thief through the aqua-hued trees, pops of color interrupting the landscape, until she arrives at a vibrantly colored village, populated by nattily dressed woodland creatures. She makes her way through the town, asking animals for help, and eventually arrives at the fox's house, where their toy conflict is sweetly resolved. Children will love the whimsy of this story and how a simple trip to school could end in an enchanted village. The panel artwork moves the narrative swiftly along, while full- and double-page spreads give readers a chance to pause over delightfully detailed scenes. A charming, fantastical twist on the backyard adventure.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When a girl sets her treasured stuffed fox down in a playground and a real fox snatches it up, she witnesses the act but can't catch the thief. Accompanied by a school friend, the girl ventures into the woods, asking the animals they meet if they've seen the fox. Graegin's (The Lost Gift) story is wordless, but her panels are so clear that readers can easily supply dialogue of their own. When at last the children find the fox, they understand the crime (and the criminal) in a new light, and Graegin ends on a note of tenderness. The story's delights are many, but a special draw is the secret world the girl and boy discover. Their reality is painted in shades of dull blue-gray, but as they press on, small splashes of color hint at what's to come. A hedgerow doorway delivers them into a world of brilliantly colored stores and houses: it's the forest animals' own private realm, drawn in careful detail. This is a story not just to read but to inhabit. Ages 4-8. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-A series of monochromatic cells begin this wordless book. A young girl searches her house to bring her most treasured possession (her favorite toy, a stuffed fox) to share during show-and-tell at school. As readers turn pages, a young fox spots the toy unattended and swiftly runs off with it into the nearby forest, followed by the girl and a classmate. With each succeeding frame, the running fox is highlighted, brilliant orange against a neutral green-gray forest, each scene digitally colored with pencil, watercolor, and ink. Hidden residents gradually come to life with color until a turn of the page reveals a sudden double-page fantasy of small homes filled with personified animals. This tale of a missing toy builds to emphasize the girl's unselfishness-a gesture of a generous heart. Movement of the characters from cell to cell encourages children to infer emotions and plot action, and page details will send viewers looking for small clues that broaden the story. VERDICT An engaging exercise in reading pictures and creative narrative. A general addition for younger readers.-Mary Elam, Learning Media Services, Plano ISD, TX © 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 Horn Book Review
A girl sets her beloved stuffed fox under a swing set and a fox (resembling the toy) grabs it. A bespectacled classmate joins the girl in her pursuit through a forest to the thief's home, where they orchestrate a trade. The imaginative, mostly wordless story is told in comics format, starting with a limited, blue-hued palette and evolving to include vibrant, full-color spreads. (c) Copyright 2017. 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 small child, a fox, and the deep forest: not a grim tale at all but rather a magical journey culminating in an act of mutual kindness. Front endpapers show a shelf with dolls, stuffed animals (including a stuffed fox), and books, including Adventures of a Small Fox and The Magical Unicorn, which foreshadow the story to come. The protagonist, a brown-skinned child with a black pageboy, brings the much-beloved fox to show and tell and then takes it out to the playground at recess. But when the child plays on the swings, a real fox takes the stuffed fox and runs off with it through the woods. Up to now the wordless panels have been tinged with blue; the live fox is a vivid orange. The child and a light-skinned friend with close-cropped hair and glasses follow, the pages becoming more varied in hue and highly saturated before bursting, Oz-like, with color when they reach the fairy-tale town where the fox lives. The little fox and the child exchange hugs and stuffed animals, the child returns home, and the endpapers now show a polka-dot unicorn in place of the stuffed fox. (Unfortunately, this unicorn, crucial to the arc of the wordless narrative, is mostly covered by the flyleaf.) The illustrations are rendered in pencil, watercolor, and ink, assembled and colored digitally. Young children will pore over this wordless picture book again and again, finding something new to enjoy each time. A wordless picture book that makes a great read. (Picture book. 3-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
