Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
"A child sat on his island, looking out at the world and thinking." So begins this beautifully illustrated, sparely worded picture book in which a child, on each new spread, envisions a more just, peaceful, and thriving world than the one he sees. "What if we lasso the clouds and bring rain to the desert?" "What if we finally learned to share water, bread, air, and earth?" Finally, after the child looks "out at the world from his island one last time," a last twist introduces a profound idea: "he decided... to be born." Paintings by Tallec (Jerome by Heart) illustrate each scenario with an effective mix of sketched-pencil figures and richly saturated colors that echo the scene's solidly entrenched sorrows, the child's otherworldly presence, and the hope in Lenain's words. More meditative parable than story, this unusual and moving offering may be best suited as a prompt for reflection and conversation among readers who are asking questions about compassionate values, the power of individual action, and the role of imagination in creating a loving, life-sustaining world for all. Ages 6-9. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Horn Book Review
From his perch on "his island," a boy imagines solutions to problems he sees (such as famine: "What if we lasso the clouds and bring rain to the desert?") as painterly art interprets his musings. The premise of this French import may sound twee, but the ending delivers a wallop: all along, the boy has been trying to decide whether to be born. (He decides yes.) (c) Copyright 2019. 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 child sat on his island, looking out at the world and thinking."He sees a world full of miseries: war, famine, hegemony, pollution, and sorrow. For each, he imagines a transformation: "What if we lasso the clouds and bring rain to the desert?...What if we wash [the ocean] clean?" In Tallec's painterly scenes, the child is defined by swift pencil lines, the only color to him his red cheeks and pantsthe rest is white. He is placed on negative space, swaths or spots of white that share the spreads with the painted depictions of destruction and evil. It's a novel visual approach to a familiar theme, subverting what readers may expect by making the reality appear more concrete than the possibility and mostly leaving the what-if's in readers' imaginations. Some spreads are at once more pointed and more obscure than others: When the child sees "the powerful gorging, ordering, shouting, and decreeing," he stands in front of a TV set tuned to a smug-looking politician and thinks, "We have to open their eyes or drive them out." Open the eyes of the two people watching from the couch? Drive out the powerful? Exactly who those pronouns refer to can spawn a conversation all by itself. At the end, readers learn why the child appears so ephemeral: He doesn't yet exist but has decided he has the resolve to be born.Sobering and provocative. (Picture book. 5-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
