MARKET DAY

Once again Ehlert (Top Cat, 1998, etc.) has created a vibrant and fascinating picture book by arranging and photographing pieces of folk art from her collection, this time against backdrops of Guatemalan and Colombian textiles. Carved and painted wooden chickens perch in front of a backdrop of appliquéd chickens, as the family feeds them corn before packing up the produce to take to market. In a whimsically painted clay truck, they go “past the fish and frogs that swim near the bridge / and past the sheep that graze on the ridge.” Among others going to market are mice dolls from Indonesia on an African cycle made of discarded metal containers, wire, bike chain, rubber, and plastic. A wooden jaguar passes by with a tomato and later a carrot in its mouth, and a clay possum pulls a cart holding a single papier-mâché turnip. Part of the pleasure of the book is in scrutinizing the ingenious details of the folk art, and the way they’ve been combined to tell the story. There’s an element of childlike play in this, reminiscent of the way children create and act out stories by combining toys of various origins and disparate sizes, and through the power of imagination create a world that is entirely their own. Ehlert has created a similarly captivating world within these pages. A two-paged catalogue of artifacts, their composition, and their origins completes the picture. (Picture book. 3-7)