JABBERWOCKY

Myers imagines an urban playground, small children playing happily until the Jabberwock arrives for an epic one-on-one basketball game with our unnamed hero. Striking visuals aid this transformation, placid blues and greens giving way to angry reds and oranges as the demonic Jabberwock enters, a tall, all-black figure with seven grasping fingers on a monstrously outsized hand. The juxtaposition of familiar text against new images yields beautifully felicitous interpretations: Our hero bows his head, the foreshortened perspective putting the emphasis on his hand resting against the chain-link fence, as the text reads, “So rested he by the Tumtum tree / And stood a while in thought.” The actual conflict stretches over three spreads, a David-like hero confidently outsmarting the Goliath Jabberwock: “One, two! One, two! And through and through. . . .” Thus is order restored, and the children come out to play again. The choice of setting is brilliant, allowing the reader to join the artist in seeing the heroic possibilities in play. (Picture book/poetry. 5-10)