Publisher's Hardcover ©2024 | -- |
Starred Review What starts out feeling like a mature version of Goodnight Moon, with objects being thanked rather than told goodnight, quickly transforms into a mysterious, sprawling adventure. Beginning at the most basic level, color-separated images that thank yellow, red, and blue demonstrate how the colors combine to build the images. Next, the early elements of an ordinary day are thanked, including bed, alarm clock, shower, towel, cup, bread, and jam. Soon, however, the arrival of a surprise package sends the narrative in a sharp new direction with "thank you, map" and "thank you, promise." Individual objects are presented on a white background (thank you, boots, camera, flashlight, and compass), then the illustrations expand into larger two-page landscapes. New avenues are opened by a bicycle, train, bus, plane, and even a parachute. The vocabulary creates images just as the illustrations do, with expressive phrases like "thank you, cacophony" and "thank you, caution" and "thank you, fear." The adventure lasts a year, thankings of each season showing the passage of time, until the colors separate back out at the end. As an artistic and writing exercise, readers must consider, what makes an impact in life? What experiences matter? The intricately patterned illustrations are richly textured and add depth to the spare text. This long-form picture book is unique, deceptively simple, and well worth exploring.
Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)There's much to be thankful forThe book's narrator-rendered in a blueish silhouette-rises and gets dressed before leaving home to follow a treasure map to something special. Along the way, our protagonist expresses thanks for a growing catalog of items and concepts, from individual colors ("Thank you, yellow / thank you, red") to household items ("Thank you, alarm clock / Thank you, bed") to ideas such as fear and homecoming to, finally, the colors again. Full-page illustrations highlighting single objects transition into grand, full-spread vistas and busy scenes as the protagonist traverses land, sea, and sky while the seasons pass. Paired with simple text made up of brief "thank you" sentences, the story unfolds through the elegant, textured images. It isn't always readily apparent how some of the statements correspond to the action depicted; this is a tale that begs readers to linger and wonder about what it means to be grateful. Full comprehension will require a reread, given the sudden yet subtle and purely visual story developments, but the beauty of the artwork makes it well worth the journey. A limited but vivid palette of primary colors simultaneously soothes with its blues and energizes with its red and yellows, creating an aesthetically pleasing, thought-provoking, and engaging experience.A whimsical, enriching, and deeply rewarding adventure in gratitude.(Picture book. 4-8)
Kirkus ReviewsThere's much to be thankful forThe book's narrator-rendered in a blueish silhouette-rises and gets dressed before leaving home to follow a treasure map to something special. Along the way, our protagonist expresses thanks for a growing catalog of items and concepts, from individual colors ("Thank you, yellow / thank you, red") to household items ("Thank you, alarm clock / Thank you, bed") to ideas such as fear and homecoming to, finally, the colors again. Full-page illustrations highlighting single objects transition into grand, full-spread vistas and busy scenes as the protagonist traverses land, sea, and sky while the seasons pass. Paired with simple text made up of brief "thank you" sentences, the story unfolds through the elegant, textured images. It isn't always readily apparent how some of the statements correspond to the action depicted; this is a tale that begs readers to linger and wonder about what it means to be grateful. Full comprehension will require a reread, given the sudden yet subtle and purely visual story developments, but the beauty of the artwork makes it well worth the journey. A limited but vivid palette of primary colors simultaneously soothes with its blues and energizes with its red and yellows, creating an aesthetically pleasing, thought-provoking, and engaging experience.A whimsical, enriching, and deeply rewarding adventure in gratitude.(Picture book. 4-8)
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Mon Dec 09 00:00:00 CST 2024)
Starred Review for Kirkus Reviews (Fri Oct 04 00:00:00 CDT 2024)
Kirkus Reviews
This magnificent new title from Icinori starts as a word book of things to be thankful for and turns into a thrilling adventure story along the way
A BookPage Best Picture Book of 2024!
One of 100 Scope Notes’s Most Astonishingly Unconventional Books of 2024!
What starts as a series of “thank yous” addressed to common objects that inhabit our daily lives gradually builds into a fantastic journey across landscapes, seasons, and inner discoveries.
Deceptively simple, each page acknowledges the contributions of a different object (spoon, rock, beasts) or concept (summer, slumber, surprise), with each image building on the next to create a dazzling narrative that invites readers to puzzle and play, explore and discover, appreciate and marvel.
Aaron Becker’s Journey meets Carter Higgins’s Circle Under Berry in this visual tour de force and invitation to look at the world with new eyes.