Review by Booklist Review
Excavating the PastSophie Blackall's latest picture book is a genuine charmer, but there's subtle depth, here, too. Nostalgia can be a tricky project--so often, it presents a picture of the past that glosses over the rougher, less pleasant parts of history. That can be anodyne, of course, but on a larger scale, nostalgia risks replacing a true accounting of the past with a constructed version composed of only bits and pieces of a much larger and often heavier truth.Blackall's latest picture book cleverly and subtly engages with that problem through the story of an old farmhouse in upstate New York. A large family lives in a well-loved house, and they've truly left a mark--the walls are hand-painted with colorful flowers; the beds in a row upstairs lie beneath pictures and photos overlapping on the slanted ceiling; height markings tick up along a doorway. In a charmingly long run-on sentence that gestures toward the structure of "The House That Jack Built," Blackall highlights tiny moments in the life of the family, their hopes and dreams, and how they spend their time together, happily and sometimes grouchily. Her artwork echoes the jumble, and it's genuinely captivating: pieces of fabric overlay clippings of newspaper, book pages, shreds of wallpaper, and bits of photos; collaged figures of parents, kids, cats, cows, and furniture are pieced together in cutaway views that resemble a dollhouse; watercolor landscapes open up over softly rolling hills under delicately clouded skies.An abrupt turn occurs when the youngest child in the family, now older herself, leaves the house, and it falls to ruin, with trees growing through holes in the floor and animals taking residence in the rooms. The house seems old and tired, now, and the once cluttered-but-clean home is littered with leaves and debris, and those clouded skies are now visible through broken windows. And then, Blackall herself enters the picture, discovering the ruined house and the many treasures inside, and the story concludes with her literally piecing together a story of the house and its residents from the bits and pieces she collects there.What starts as a lovely if familiar story about a large family in an old-fashioned house becomes much more complicated in the closing pages, transforming the book into a meditation on the creative process. Blackall's author's note describes the process of excavating the very real house to find many of the materials she uses in the intricate artwork. Photos, wallpaper, and remnants of the family's clothes are embedded in the story itself.And yet, though she mentions talking with the remaining family members who live in the area, she never identifies which elements of the story are based on their memories: "I sharpened my pencil and mixed some paint and dipped my brush and cut up some shapes and began to imagine the things that took place." Despite its very real origins, Blackall reveals that this story is a literal construction of the past; all she has is the scraps she finds in the house, the pieced-together stories of the members of the family she can track down, and her own understanding about the area--which she admits she's still learning. This reveal invites us to think carefully about both what we know about our histories and how we know it while still delighting in the small, beautiful pieces we can discover.Adults, who are generally more keenly aware of the darker parts of the past, might find this multifaceted and arresting story slightly haunting, especially in concert with Blackall's author's note, which hints at the systematic decay of the dairy industry in the region and shares more details about how she came across some of the objects used in the art (such as an abandoned wedding gown and 21 handmade, mud-caked dresses). Younger readers may or may not pick up on that, but the large and vibrant family at the heart of the story, the detail-packed artwork, the touching inside glimpse at the artist's process, and the lilting verses are irresistible even without a wider knowledge of the world outside the house so lovingly memorialized here.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In rhythmic, lightly rhyming verse and densely textured multimedia spreads whose collaged layers mimic the strata of stories built up over generations, two-time Caldecott Medalist Blackall relays the history of a white clapboard farmhouse "where twelve children/ were born and raised,/ where they learned to crawl,/ in the short front hall." Gently affectionate lines and impish portraits of the siblings, who read as white, imagine their young lives in mischief, play, and work as they "whispered secrets,/ played truth or dare,/ and lost their teeth/ and brushed their hair." Cleverly rendered cutaway images, meanwhile, hint visually at adjoining rooms while centering myriad objects: rag rugs, prize ribbons, "a button/ that was once a shell in the sea," and more. After the last family member eventually departs, and the house falls into decay ("the parlor organ that rattled with nuts,/ put there by a squirrel with rather a fuss"), a turn toward authorial self-insertion pushes the once unsalvageable "falling-down house" into the here and now. The tale's strong sense of place undergirds Blackall's witness to the way environments change over time and stories survive long after material objects disappear, in a thoughtful, expertly executed work that looks simultaneously forward and back. An author's note details the story behind the Upstate New York farmhouse. Ages 4--8. Agent: Nancy Gallt, Gallt & Zacker Literary. (Sept.)
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Review by Horn Book Review
Blackall brings herself and her artistic process into this (imagined) story of twelve siblings who grow up in a real-life farmhouse that was situated on a property Blackall owns. The text is one long sentence with the cadence of a chant, giving the story a propulsive feeling while the family goes about the many repetitive chores required to keep a large household running in a time before electricity. Blackall's illustrations are everything here, incorporating wallpaper, fabrics, and other items scavenged from the house melded together with ink, watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil to create vibrantly layered compositions with a tactile quality. Landscape spreads echo the curves and patterns of Virginia Lee Burton's similarly themed classic The Little House, and interiors are depicted in cross-sections, as if readers are peeking inside a dollhouse. Eventually the children grow up and move away; the house, now empty, deteriorates, and new life -- raccoons, a tree, a bear -- moves in. Blackall devotes the last few pages to her own discovery and exploration of the dilapidated structure and how she created the art that shapes this story of a place "where twelve children were born and raised...where they'll live on, now, in this book that you hold, like your stories will, so long as they're told." Adrienne L. Pettinelli September/October 2022 p.50(c) Copyright 2022. 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 large white house situated in farm fields and gardens is home to a large, loving family. Twelve active, light-skinned children play, do their chores, and occasionally make mischief. Their growth is measured with marks on a wall for all to see. They sleep, read, giggle, and share secrets and dreams in dormitorylike rooms. The children grow up and leave for school and jobs and families of their own. When the youngest child, now quite old, leaves for the last time, the farmhouse is abandoned and sinks into disrepair. But the tale doesn't end there. Brief rhythmic lines and a bit of playful rhyme list the day-to-day events and describe the children's imaginings and dreams. The text is set within light beige panels amid double-page spreads of bright, colorful, layered illustrations that add depth, detail, and emotional connection. In a delightful surprise twist, Blackall becomes part of the tale, addressing readers directly, telling how she discovered this derelict farmhouse, collected the bits and pieces left behind, and used them to create the illustrations for the book they are holding in the hope that not only will the family's story live on, but so might the stories these young readers will tell someday. Information about the actual family, as well as photos of the house and further details regarding Blackall's process, appears in an author's note. (This picture book was reviewed digitally.) A lovely, tender reimagining of people in a long-past time and place. (Picture book. 4-9) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
