Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sat Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Starred Review Almond-McKean is one of the most fertile partnerships out there, with The Savage (2008) and Slog's Dad (2011) as ample evidence. Their latest is an original fable of creation and imagination loaded with both playfulness and darkness. It's set in a world a bit like ours, but also not: "There were gaps and holes in it . . . places where there seemed to be nothing at all." The gods who'd created it all had grown complacent, so one day, three children are inspired to fill a few of those holes. The youngest imagines a "kind of mousy thing," and presto! A mouse. The sister follows suit with a "kind of birdy thing," and the elder brother hisses a snake into existence. But there's an even bigger, fiercer hole that needs to be filled, and together they bring a wolf to mind as the afternoon takes a ferocious turn. The contorted beauty of McKean's figures and Almond's intense, twisty narrative will keep readers right on the edge of comfort before the clouds clear. Along the way, they'll be dazzled by the lush lyricism of the tale and the wild emotional swings from page to page as well as McKean's creative use of mixed materials and compositional space. You could say that this is Almond and McKean's most beautiful effort yet, but just know that beautiful has its own dark and wondrous meaning in their hands.

Horn Book

The gods have abandoned their work with "still much making to be done." Little Ben is first to notice; soon he, Sue, and Harry are dreaming up creatures and piecing them together--first a mouse and a bird, then a more problematic snake, a terrifying wolf, etc. McKean expertly matches his angular figures to Almond's children, with their perilous mix of innocence, naiveti, and power.

Kirkus Reviews

An award-winning British team conjures a haunting graphic novella that shows what happens when the complacent gods stop creating things and children pick up the slack. The gods--slothful as Roman emperors--loll about half-naked in the clouds eating cake and looking down upon their creations, which range from mighty mountains to delicate wisteria. But they abandoned their world-building long ago, leaving empty gaps and spaces as huge as deserts or "no bigger than a fingernail." Harry, Sue and Little Ben are children who inhabit the gods' incomplete world. One day, Ben, finding this too-empty landscape peculiar, yells up at the gods, "It needs more things in it!" The children proceed to imagine--and then construct with twigs, clay and grasses--a few things themselves. The titular mouse, bird, snake and wolf spring to life! Spoiler: Creating the wolf backfires hideously. Skellig (2009) author Almond's tale is as otherworldly as ever, his themes of imagination and creativity nuanced. In inventive comic-book–style panels and theatrical full-bleed spreads, McKean adds a fierce, frightening texture to the narrative. The edgy, toga-wearing gods above and children down below are sculptural, as if they were molded out of clay--a fitting image for a creation story. Wild and alive, this visually extravagant fable of the marvel, power and active nature of the creative process howls at the moon. (art not seen in full color) (Graphic novella. 9-12)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Hacker earns all the stereotypical accolades of a debut novel-promising, ambitious, sincere-but his execution is far more original, and the result is an odd alloy of kitchen-sink family drama and metafictional inquest. Arthur Morel, who as a child was a talented violinist with a flair for self-sabotage, has just finished his second novel (also called The Morels), a barely fictionalized account of his relationship with his wife Penelope and their son, Will. His book-s last scene, however, depicts Arthur and an eight-year-old Will engaging in a sexual act that shocks the public and quickly scuttles his relationship with his family, who are unmoved by his claims of poetic license. Penelope begins to suspect that the novel is an oblique admission by her husband of more than a merely unsavory imagination, and soon Arthur-s mounting troubles become a legal matter. His only remaining ally is a small-time filmmaker, whose faith in his friend-s innocence leads him to make a documentary that might uncover the facts behind the fictionalized Morels. Savvy readers will know that Hacker is up to something from the beginning, and what develops is an eloquent treatise on the rights of artists to exploit their personal histories-and why they do so, and at what cost. The payoff goes a long way toward justifying an overstuffed middle section that suffers from the frequent absence of the novel-s two anchors, the ever-frustrating Arthur and precocious Will. Hacker does more than establish himself with this fine debut; he delivers a mission statement and the book retains the same ability to shock as its namesake. Agent: Douglas Stewart, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Apr.)

School Library Journal (Wed May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2013)

Gr 2-6 In this original creation myth, set "long ago and far away, in a world rather like this one," the gods have left some things unfinished. Having created mountains, camels, people, and other phenomena, they are now prone to enjoying naps and teatime in the clouds more than work. Yet, there are "places that were filled with emptiness." Almond's potent text and McKean's otherworldly caricatures create a magic that is all-absorbing. Text and image are more tightly connected in this hybrid format than in previous collaborations. Often they are contained together in panels of varying sizes and shapes. Sometimes the words are overlaid on pictures or a sentence or paragraph is framed by the full-page composition. The design propels readers through the story of Harry, Sue, and Little Ben, who, when bored with the world they know, start imagining and then fashioning new creatures. Each animal, made from materials at hand and called to life by the children's commands, gets progressively larger and more threatening until Harry's wolf gobbles up the two older children. Realizing that the gods are no help, Ben addresses the danger by unmaking the beast and rescuing the youth within. The ending leaves an opening for trouble to rise again. Almond's mythic and folkloric elements, wrapped in his own fertile imagination, combine with McKean's expressionistic illustrations to produce a whole that reveals the beauty and terror encountered in the created world and in the human spirit. Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library