Rating: WORTHY!
This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was a different kind of story, beautifully illustrated by Sara Richard in almost day-glo colors, with a swirling impressionistic style reminiscent in some parts, of van Gogh's rather impressionistic The Starry Night. Not that Van Gogh ever liked that painting! But let's not get too pretentious: the images were lovely and had an inherent ghostliness in them and still carried the dark threat of a deep night. If that's what the artist was aiming for, she nailed it!
The story is short (less than fifty pages), but it would have dragged had it been longer. It's just long enough. The animals see this young ghost wandering aimlessly through their forested, swampy world and discuss her raison d'être. The owl decides to do more than this, and it leads to an interesting tale since both the ghost and the owl have a backstory, and it seems that each one crosses paths with the other in interesting ways.
I really enjoyed the simplicity of the story which couches a slightly more complex tale within, and the whole thing comes together in finely-wrought style. It has ups and down, and not predictable ones either, and it has some great story-telling. I liked it a lot and I recommend it as a worthy read.
