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PICTURE BOOKS
Alemagna, Beatrice

Child of Glass

52 pp. | Enchanted Lion | November, 2019 | Trade ISBN 978-1-59270-303-6 $18.95
(2) K-3 Translated by Claudia Zoe Bedrick. What would happen if one's thoughts were always exposed? Set in a mythical village "near the cities of Florence and Bilbao," this picture book explores that question through its main character, Gisele, a child made of glass. Beautiful, fragile, and completely transparent (and in the illustrations, naked), Gisele has a problem: every thought she has is on display for anyone to observe and judge. "People grew cross with her. 'Can't you keep your thoughts to yourself?' they would say. Or, 'Aren't you ashamed to show such awful things, Gisele?'" Gisele's glass exterior begins to crack from this burden, and she decides to leave home. Ethereal art brings out the fairy-tale quality of the story, and strategically placed paper vellum overlays add complexity to the idea of transparency and human thought. Though she travels extensively, Gisele finds she cannot escape; wherever she goes, she faces disapproval and rejection, and from this constant struggle she learns to accept herself for who she is. She returns home to live as she pleases, "sparkling and luminous, sensitive and transparent, but resolute." Metaphoric in its consideration of how one learns to own the whole of oneself in a judgmental, conformist world, the story also touches on the value of the life of the mind.
Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2020

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