Review by New York Times Review
modern-day Tastemakers, unlike their forebears, shower love on comics and graphic novels without a hint of condescension. This is true even of works intended mainly for children, a category that includes - let's be honest - most of the superhero sagas that dominate pop culture's most lucrative precincts. I'm not complaining, by the way (I love comics too), just observing. But picture books are another story. Even the genius likes of Beatrix Potter and Maurice Sendak are shunted off to the critical equivalent of the Thanksgiving kids' table, smiled at but not often engaged with. Yet the best picture books, far from being baby food, display a pictorial sophistication that puts many graphic novels to shame; think of them as visual haiku, an art form of juxtaposition and implication, bright colors notwithstanding. And here are three examples to prove the point - books full of surface delight that also reward close reading. Kids might love them, but I'm guessing all three will resonate even more with grown-ups. Standing in the outfield and waiting to catch a high fly ball is among the more agonizing but ubiquitous rituals of American childhood: not quite as dire as doctors' shots or puberty, but still bad. (That anyone sticks with baseball long enough to get good at it is a tribute to either the human spirit or masochism.) In I GOT IT! (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 32 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8), David Wiesner slows time down and finds a world of drama in those five or so hellish seconds between ball leaving bat and settling - or not - into mitt. Surely even capable athletes will relate to the interplay between body and mind, muscle and emotion, which "I Got It!" captures with beauty, fluidity, wit and suspense. Wiesner is the only three-time winner of the Caldecott Medal - for "Ttiesday" (1991), "The Three Pigs" (2001) and "Flotsam" (2006). Like most of his books, "I Got It! " is wordless, apart from the title phrase, which appears first as aspirational shout and once again, many pages later, as triumphant cry. (I hope that's not a spoiler, but Wiesner is no Charles Schulz.) The hero is a boy who, when we first see him, is standing on the wrong side of a backstop fence, longing to join a sandlot game. He looks to be a year or two younger than the rest of the kids; a team captain banishes him to the farther reaches of the field, somewhere around Pluto's orbit, where he can presumably do no harm. But the inevitable ball is hit his way, and Wiesner's illustrations begin to shift subtly between actual playing field and interior landscape. In the boy's mind, as he races to make the catch, he suffers several catastrophic failures. Then, as teammates also converge on the ball, he takes flight in a rush of surreal images - focus emerging amid fear and distraction. Like René Magritte, Wiesner has a precise and realistic style that makes his leaps into the weird all the more effective, though it took me a few passes to figure out how to read the illustrations, the flitting between literal and figurative. As with any good wordless picture book, "I Got It!" should provoke many discussions - not just about doubt and perseverance, but also about creative visual storytelling. The kids will soon be ready for Terrence Malick and Wong Kar-wai. While the sky is a key supporting player in "I Got It!," the sea is a true co-star in Sophie Blackall's HELLO LIGHTHOUSE (Little, Brown, 48 pp., $18.99; ages 4 to 8). Blackall's ocean is variously placid, rippling, luminescent, angry, violent, frozen, gray, green, cerulean, black; her waters surge and recede, but her red and white lighthouse and its bearded, contemplative keeper remain stolid and constant - until they don't. I will be surprised if a more exquisite picture book is published this year. Blackall is another Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator, in 2015 for "Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear" (written by Lindsay Mattick). She is also known for drawing Ivy and Bean, stars of the best-selling chapter book series by Annie Barrows. Here, her illustrations evoke American folk art, early Renaissance painting and traditional Japanese seascapes, but in a synthesis all her own. The story is straightforward: a slice-oflife narrative about working and living on a remote lighthouse, spanning maybe a decade and seemingly set in the early 20th century. There are a few dramatic spikes - a rescue, a marriage, an illness, a birth, a lovely visit from whales - but the book's real meaning is in the careful patterning of Blackall's text and illustrations, which evoke universal themes: steadfastness and change, distance and attachment, nature in all its animate and inanimate tumult. Children will be fascinated by the practical details of lighthouse tending and delighted by Blackall's evident affection for her subject. (In an afterward, she confesses that, "like most sensible people, I have always loved lighthouses.") But what really got me was the tender illustration of the keeper, his wife and their newborn daughter. The infant's round head, a literal circle of life, is the focus not only of the composition but also, in a way, of the entire book. This is a lighthouse that both protects and nurtures. Sky and sea share the spotlight with panache in the unusually liquid paintings, augmented by Photoshop, which Jillian Tamaki has created for THEY SAY BLUE (Abrams, 40 pp., $17.99; ages 4 to 8). Her pages still look wet! This is a gorgeous, free-associative (or seemingly so) book, moving in ways both elusive and clear. Tamaki has worked primarily as a cartoonist and graphic novelist - she won a 2014 Caldecott Honor for the graphic novel "This One Summer" (written by her cousin Mariko Tamaki), and "They Say Blue" is her first picture book. Her narrator is a girl of grade-school age whom we meet sitting on a dune at the beach. "They say the color of the sky is blue. Which is true today! " she begins. "They say the sea is blue, too. It certainly looks like it from here. But when I hold the water in my hands, it's clear as glass." The book then becomes a kind of meditation on different colors and the moods they evoke, but also the seasons... and the comforts of bedtime ... and the pleasure of being taken care of... and a hint of eventual independence. The book ends with the narrator and her mother watching through a window as a flock of crows takes flight, "tiny ink blots on a sea of sky." If "They Say Blue" is "about" anything, it's a peek into a child's curious, questing, observant mind as she moves beyond received wisdom - what is it "they" say again? - to thinking and feeling and yearning for herself. This may not be to every kid's taste; I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had the patience for "They Say Blue" when I was 4 or 5. But if you care about this art form, I promise you will cherish it. ? BRUCE handy, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is the author of "Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 8, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Three-time Caldecott medalist Wiesner hits it out of the park with this almost-wordless picture book about a boy who just wants to be part of the baseball team. When a ball is thrown, he optimistically shouts, I got it! and runs with gloved arm outstretched, but he trips over a tree root. Hat, birds, and ball fly off as he misses. But can he rewind and effect a do-over? In almost dreamlike slow motion, the boy imagines a better outcome. He envisions the whole team and all the birds flying toward the ball, still high in the air. Now gigantic, the ball looms over the double-page spread; as the illustrations grow more surreal, the boy outstrips the flying birds, passes up all the other children, and swoops up to fly, arm extended, for the grand finale: I GOT IT! He's the hero of the team! Whether real or a dream, the ecstatic catch is euphoric, as teammates cheer him. Acrylic, gouache, and watercolor illustrate every page with breathless blue sky and clouds, dynamic poses, and the active diagonals of sprinting children and the arcing ball. Generous white space becomes the background for a critical moment for a remarkable grab out of the sky.--Gepson, Lolly Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Three-time Caldecott Medalist Wiesner looks at the interior anxieties of a boy playing baseball with a new crowd of kids. Assigned to the outfield, and with a fly ball heading toward him, the boy imagines himself uttering the words of the title-"I got it!"-but then tripping on a root. In his next vision of failure, a tree keeps him from snagging the ball. More surreal wordless spreads follow, expressions of the boy's fears of humiliation and determination to succeed-all flashing by in the time it takes the ball to descend. In one, the ball looms, the size of a planet. Then the boy chases through a crowd of giant kids like a Lilliputian, grabbing onto their clothes, hopping from head to head, and-in a final, victorious leap-making the catch: "I got it!" Although this nearly wordless story lacks the comedy of some of his previous creations, Wiesner conveys with startling immediacy how time slows in moments of crisis, and the way that people move back and forth between the outer world of reality and the complicated, many-dimensional world of interior consciousness. Ages 4-7. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-Set against the backdrop of a pick-up baseball game, Wiesner's nearly wordless picture book expertly layers elements of relatable emotion, boundless imagination, eye-popping action, and out-and-out fun. When a lonely boy approaches a group of kids milling around the chain-link backstop, he is quickly sized up by the team captain and sent to the outfield. A crack of the bat later, a fly ball is hurtling its way toward the youngster, who enthusiastically calls out, "I got it!" Easier said than done, as all manner of fantastical obstacles throw themselves in his pathway-everything from suddenly sprouting tree branches to impossible shifts in size (of both ball and boy). Never fear, perseverance and determination win out in the end, and the young protagonist, eyes shining brightly, arm fully extended, and glove reaching to blue sky, is triumphant ("I GOT IT!"). Created in acrylic, gouache, and watercolor, Wiesner's beautifully composed paintings realistically portray his characters, their activities, and their social interactions, making the flights of fancy all the more effective. Any reader who has ever experienced the seemingly endless wait for a fly ball to descend into their open glove (along with the always-present possibility of disaster) will relate to this story. VERDICT A mesmerizing and entertaining offering that will be enjoyed by a broad audience. A must-have addition to sports shelves.-Joy Fleishhacker, Pikes Peak Library District, Colorado Springs © Copyright 2018. 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
In Wiesner's latest nearly wordless picture book, a boy exiled to the outfield in a baseball game keeps missing the ball until, in a series of fantastical images, he finally makes the big catch. Wiesner's trademark hyperrealistic art contains unexpected visual narrative twists. The sky-blue and clean-white backgrounds in the acrylic, gouache, and watercolor illustrations make it easier to follow the book's flights of fancy. (c) Copyright 2018. 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 weedy kid in shorts and a T-shirt goes to the sandlot with a glove, hoping to play.Sent to the outfield, the kid waits for a chance. The batter hits a long fly ball that sails that way. The protagonist runs, leaps, and stretches, yelling, "I got it!"the only words in the book. But the kid trips over some roots, dives, and lands on the ground with the ball just out of reach, while team members cluster around, clutching their heads in disbelief. Wiesner is a master of fantastical wordless (or nearly so) adventures, and what seems to be a simple event becomes a series of might-have-beens and possibilities, playing out several times with different scenarios. A huge tree with protruding roots appears and stops the kid from getting to the ball; several teammates give chase, gloves outstretched, as the protagonist seems to be among them and then flying over them to finally grab the elusive ball: "I GOT IT!" This time it is the batter who's thrown into despair, while the protagonist's team cheers. And what about the birds? Are they just observers or are they somehow affecting the outcome? Sometimes the protagonist is small and the glove and ball are huge as perspective shifts. The scenes are softly painted, growing brighter and sharper after the catch. Readers will interpret it any way they wish, perhaps differently with each perusal. The protagonist has light olive skin and straight black hair, and the other players are racially and gender diverse.Wonderfully imaginative and intriguing. (Picture book. 6-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
