  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 09/01/2017 *Starred Review* This wordless picture book celebrates the imaginative exploration of what lines can do to foster creativity. From the bifurcated cover, half shiny as ice, the other matte white, children are invited into an artist’s world, where charcoal, pencil, and paper can create magic for both readers and aspiring illustrators. The palette of white, black, and gray introduces a girl skating on a frozen pond, wearing a red woolly hat and red mittens. In one spare line, her skate crosses the double fold spread, while in the next, she draws swirling and straight lines with her edges. Thin lines roil into thicker gray lines; straight lines intersect the spirals as the lone skater executes more and more complicated maneuvers. Her breakneck spin produces a blur of red hat and mittens. Forward, backward, she skates off the page, leaps into the air, trips, and falls. At this point, Lee cleverly introduces a torn page on one side. Is this a story drawn on paper or an ice-rink reality? A crumpled-up page leads to a new drawing as a crowd of skaters of all shapes and sizes appears on the ice and links up in a chain led by a dog to finish a meta story replete with friendship and winter activity. Another wordless wonder from the award-winning author of Wave (2008), Mirror (2010), and Shadow (2010). - Copyright 2017 Booklist. School Library Journal - 10/01/2017 PreS-Gr 3—An unseen artist sketches a deft ice skater making beautiful lines on the ice. Straight lines, squiggles, and curls, the combinations are endless. Then, suddenly, the ice skater falls, disrupting the fluidity and gracefulness of the story. The artist seems displeased with this development and starts anew on the following page. In this wordless picture book by Lee, readers can tell when the artist is changing the story line by the crinkled sketch paper and erasure mark illustrations. Through drawings alone, the message that everyone falls, but it is important to get back up and try again is delivered flawlessly. Supremely crisp, clean, and appealing, this is the kind of artwork that will entice readers to return to the pages again and again to see what detail they may have missed. The pages of the book are mostly a bright white, touched by the gray lines of the pencil drawings. The tiny splashes of color pop in the wintry hats and coats of the ice skaters as more figures emerge and the scene unfolds. Somehow, even with the cool white pages and cold, wintry landscape, this picture book for all ages will make readers feel warm inside. VERDICT Any lover of picture books will appreciate this graceful wordless gem. A great discussion starter and drawing prompt to see where a single line might lead.— Amy Shepherd, St. Anne's Episcopal School, Middleton, DE - Copyright 2017 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Loading...
 |