Author: Lee Nordling
Publisher: Lerner
Rating: WORTHY!
Illustrated by Meritxell Bosch
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
This is part of the Three Story series, and it delighted me with the play on words and the organization as a three-tiered story, each of which is told in parallel. The story is related both vertically, and horizontally and simultaneously, so you can either read the entire story of one character by reading each page, but only across the top, middle, or bottom, or you can read it down each page in the more conventional fashion and follow all three stories as they unfold. Since each tale is so intimately connected with the other two, I chose to follow the story conventionally.
I think kids will love this. I know I would have been fascinated by it at that age. Okay, I admit, I still am enamored of the way it's told. The artwork is excellent - simple enough to make the right point, yet artfully drawn and colored nonetheless, and it's full of motion and action. In some ways it reminds me of the old film strips I was very much engaged by as a young kid.
The bird gets the strip across the top of the page, the cat gets the middle, and the dog the bottom, which I guess makes it the underdog.... I don't know if this was organized alphabetically, or by relative agility or what, but that's how it is! The bird is in the catbird seat as the main protagonist, getting loose and letting loose, and out the window it flies into the yard, then to the nearby woods, stirring things up and antagonizing the cat which in turn brings in the dog. Each of these three has not only to contend with each other, but with other animals in the neighborhood, such as another cat, another dog, a predatory bird and a squirrel.
Having said that, there's no 'Tom and Jerry' violence here, just playing and chasing, the way kids themselves love to do. The whole thing quickly dissolves into a rather slapstick chase in and out of everywhere, reminiscent of the old silent movie chases, and of the Marx Brothers. And just like with Harpo Marx, there isn't a word spoken (well animals don't speak, y'know?!). It's all done in images and I loved it. Your kids will too.
Here's an afterthought. One thing which this novel puts out there as a concept is that everyone is the hero of their own story, and for children I think this is a good and self-empowering concept, but as an older skeptic and even a cynic, I have to say that this reminds me rather of Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog wherein Captain Hammer sings "Everyone's a hero in their own way". As an adult I’d buy this better if it maintained that everyone was the hero, or the anti-hero, or the villain of their own story, or more generically: if everyone was merely the subject of their own story! Just a thought!
