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ARIEL AND EMILY by Adele Aron Greenspun

ARIEL AND EMILY

by Adele Aron Greenspun & Joanie Schwarz

Pub Date: Feb. 1st, 2003
ISBN: 0-525-46861-7
Publisher: Dutton

With enormous sweetness and not a little artistry, a confection offers a whole afternoon’s arc in very few words. Emily and Ariel are best friends, and their facing portraits parallel how the tykes are portrayed throughout: in like, sometimes mirror-image, poses. These hand-tinted photographs are superimposed over park-like vistas, framed in silk-ribbon-and-floral frames. So readers see the wee girls playing with balloons, or balls, or blocks, sharing a banana very entertainingly, and generally being silly, being babies, in the park. The realism of the tots’ photographs is softened and made magical by the collage and hand-coloring technique; at the same time, the very simple vocabulary and the familiar toys and activities ground the uncomplicated story. The final image, of Emily and Ariel crawling off in the star-spangled grass to their next adventure, deftly closes the narrative, which never has more than a half-dozen words to the page. This mother-daughter team offers a delightful read-aloud for the very youngest. (Picture book. 2-5)