CALL ME GORGEOUS!
by Giles Milton and illustrated by Alexandra Milton
The creature that inhabits these pages (the ending tag line is the title) is gorgeous indeed, and it is displayed in an inventive piece of bookmaking. The text is straightforward: “I’ve got reindeer antlers / and the ears of a pig,” say the first two-page spreads. The text floats on a sea of white space, along with a close-up view of “a flamingo’s neck” or “a chameleon’s tail.” These images, made in torn, cut and shaped handmade papers and color pencils, are dramatic glimpses of the part in question and not always recognizable. The flamingo’s neck is an undulating curve of shocking pinks. The “ears of a pig” are exquisite, fuzzy, pale-rose–and-ecru objects with only a hint of either ear-ness or piggy-ness. The porcupine’s spines are a dense thicket of inky, gray lines. At the end, the full vision of the “reinde-piggy-porcu-croco-touca-flami-roos-dalma-chameleo-bat-frog” is revealed to be gorgeous indeed. The endpapers hold full images of each of the 11 animals whose parts make up our winged, beaked, antlered and spiny Gorgeous. (Picture book. 5-8)