It is as soft as silk when his mother hugs him and her hair falls in his face.” Fascinating, challenging and lovely. The shock readers feel will give way to wonder as they lose themselves in sightlessness and imagine the richness of Thomas’s world: “Black is the king of all colors. Each all-black double-page spread is devoted to one color, the left-hand page containing the simple, sensuous text rendered both in a clear, white typeface and in raised Braille letters, and the right illustrating one of the objects described with embossed lines that force readers to encounter them tactilely rather than visually. Color by color, readers learn yellow (“tastes like mustard”), red (“hurts when he finds it on his scraped knee”), brown (“crunches under his feet like fall leaves”) and so on, but all they’ll see is black. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “ The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.Ī solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.“Thomas likes all the colors because he can hear them and smell them and touch them and taste them”-but he can’t see them, and this innovative picture book gives sighted children a sense of what that must be like. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee jagged vibrations to an earthworm a hairy thicket to a flea. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk? What begins as a real pickle ends up as a charmingly fruitful journey.
(This book was reviewed digitally with 11.8-by-18.8-inch double-page spreads viewed at 18% of actual size.) Pairing Abe’s sophisticated, graphic illustrations with themes of identity and self-confidence, this amusing book will tickle ribs and provoke thought in equal measure. Care.” Thanks to Tomato’s wisdom-turned-cheerleading, Avocado learns that labels don’t often fit everyone perfectly, but “who cares what we are when we’re simply AMAZING?” Humans rarely feature in this food-centric tale, but when they appear, they have bright yellow or dark brown skin. “You don’t know what you are? So what!” the plump, oft-miscategorized foodstuff opines. Having no luck in the seafood, canned goods, and dairy aisles, Avocado’s despair is assuaged by a new friend: Tomato. Nestled happily among other anthropomorphized produce, Avocado’s contentment is shaken when it overhears a young customer wonder aloud, “Is an avocado a fruit or a vegetable?” What ensues is a tale that will entertain young readers for its witty wordplay as Avocado sets off around the supermarket trying to find out where (and to whom) it belongs. In her whimsical picture-book debut, British Japanese author and illustrator Abe transforms the humble grocery store into a stage of mirthful drama for Avocado. 5 & up)Īvocado's identity crisis-fruit or vegetable or what?!-leads to witty self-discovery.
“Thomas likes all the colors because he can hear them and smell them and touch them and taste them”-but he can’t see them, and this innovative picture book gives sighted children a sense of what that must be like.
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