The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Say, Allen

The Boy in the Garden

32 pp. | Houghton | October, 2010 | Trade ISBN 978-0-547-21410-8 $17.99

(1) K-3 In this gently unsettling tale, young Jiro is lured into fantasy by a lifelike bronze statue of a crane. Entering a cottage, he's fed by a woman who resembles "The Grateful Crane" from the folktale his mother told him. Say's compositions seem saturated in silence even when characters speak. Rectilinear architecture sets off his rounded organic forms, while ample luminous spaces become dramatic settings.

Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2010