Olive

A climb up an unusually tall tree rewards an intrepid child with exhilarating adventures and readers with some large (and small) insights. As he's done before in Red (2018) and Gold (2022), Alexander adds single-color highlights (here a light, translucent green) to finely detailed line drawings for a wordless rendition of a familiar folktale kitted with expectation-confounding twists. An East Asian--presenting child clambers up a humongous olive tree that has grown up overnight and gets a friendly reception at the top by a giant--also East Asian--who offers an olive the size of a basketball as a snack, then sets the tiny visitor on one shoulder and proceeds to dance and spin balletically on the clouds. Following a short nap beneath a big leaf, the little child climbs back down to the ground and abruptly becomes the giant by bending down to offer a ride to a tiny mouse. All the dancing, plus spread layouts that switch from horizontal to vertical and back, give a playful lilt to these sudden, dramatic changes of scale and perspective. Along with giving budding critical skills a workout by inviting comparisons with the original, this inspired take on "Jack and the Beanstalk" is sure to plant seeds of thought about how "big" and "little" are relative notions. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A heady spin, rich in thought-provoking themes and fee-fi-fo-fun tweaks. (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.