The likes of the Grimms and Andersen meet Anne Geddes in this inventive, whimsical paean to fairy tales and babyhood.
“Once upon a time, there was a baby girl named Mila,” writes photographer and new mother Enersen, who presents a series of photographs of her sleeping infant daughter set against backdrops of carefully arranged materials that evoke iconic scenes from children’s literature. Each spread includes a simple line of text recalling a particular story. The aerial perspective in the accompanying photographs creates the impression that the sleeping baby is not lying down on a floor covered with materials, but standing, sitting or even floating by in a forest in one spread, a tower in another or on a magic carpet in yet another. Granted, not every tale referenced is strictly a fairy tale (take, for example, the scene devoted to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince), and others feature no recognizable story at all, but the sum of the parts is downright enchanting. Clever use of materials features stuffed animals cast as characters, like the three bears, alongside other, less-expected details, such as a pair of tights placed atop the baby’s head as rabbit ears.
A lovely traipse into the woods. (Picture book. 3-6)
