IN THE EYE OF TEDDY

by Frank--Illus. Asch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 1973

It's hard to describe this wordless, precocious black and white fly-by of a nursery inhabitant's inner space -- even though it would amount to only a few seconds if projected on a movie screen. First there's a close up shot of a teddy bear, then a zooming in on Teddy's head, then two round eyes, then a single eye, until the pupil becomes a solid black double page -- against which background on subsequent left-hand pages a floating, naked little boy gradually enters from the top and then exits off the bottom while a surreal mix of toys and dream images (several miniature Teddys and boys among them) moves up the facing right-hand pages and disappears off the top. The final sequence reverses the opening with a progression from black page to pupil to eye to pair of eyes -- only this time it is the oval eyes of a boy who is seen next in full face and finally in toto, sitting with the bear on his lap. There is no question that all of this represents a high order of ingenuity, and we can see it as the seed of a short film fantasy, but our guess is that the children turned on by Asch's free, open kookiness from George's Store (1969) to Rebecka (1972) will find the view through Teddy's eyes less spontaneously inviting.

Pub Date: Sept. 12, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper & Row

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: CHILDREN'S