MIRO IN THE KINGDOM OF THE SUN
By
An Incan folktale about Miro, a spirited young girl who rescues her foolish brothers from the royal dungeon by saving a prince from death. The High Priest has said that the only thing that can heal the dying young prince is water from a mysterious lake in one of the corners of the world. When Miro's brothers try to pass off ordinary water as the cure, they are imprisoned. Miro, with a talent for communicating with birds, sets out to find the lake and help her brothers. Frampton's strikingly bold woodcuts, filled with color and given geometric patterns and borders, are the perfect complement to this tale, evoking the magic and mystery of a vanished ancient culture. Stylized and mostly gentle, they become fierce in Miro's encounters with giant creatures that attempt to keep her from the lake. Kurtz (I'm Calling Molly, 1989, etc.) combines formal language and a contemporary style to make the story at once accessible and otherworldly.