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Chirif, Micaela

Sheep Count Flowers

40 pp. | Levine Querido/Em Querido | October, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-1-64614-119-7 $17.99
(2) K-3 Translated by Arthur A. Levine. Illustrated by Amanda Mijangos. Through lyrical text and almost abstract art, this Argentinian import plays with the human practice of counting sheep to fall asleep. So what do sheep count? "Sheep count flowers to fall asleep: one sunflower / two roses / three geraniums / four jasmines." While the words describe the habits of sheep, the pictures also incorporate line-drawings of children's faces, sometimes sleeping, sometimes observing. The illustrations are composed of oil pastels, watercolors, graphite, and ink, creatively combined in Photoshop. They contain a dreamily surreal set of recurring motifs, such as tiny stars, with a deeply saturated velvety blue being a strong component of many of them. The sheep themselves are there, too, occasionally made from colored dots or shown with a child's arms and legs. The text is at times humorous ("Sheep fly only when sleeping") and, like dreams, at other times scary ("When sheep have nightmares they get away from the wolf at the very last moment"). The images for the latter are frightening, with jagged black backgrounds, people running, and a sharp-toothed wolf ready to bite a little girl--but a subsequent wordless double-page spread seems to show peace restored, with simple curved shapes in bright colors, and a child now riding on the wolf. The rich text and complex pictures should offer possibilities for discussion with children, who may have unexpected observations of their own.
Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2021

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