THE TALE I TOLD SASHA

With this imaginary journey, Willard (Step Lightly, 1998, etc.) turns away from the self-indulgence of her recent work towards the vision and beguiling language of A Visit to William Blake’s Inn (1981). When a door opens in the shadows of her “plain and small” living room, a latter-day Alice chases a golden ball through “an older space/ . . . over the Bridge of Butterflies,/across the Field of Lesser Beasts,” and into more magic realms. Christiana observes and expands on the hint of the psychedelic that runs through the incantatory text; the underside of a bed becomes a wide space through which fly the “snails and numbers, stars and sheep/my mother counts to fall asleep,” while elsewhere great half-seen constructions and familiar creatures made marvelous blend into shimmering backgrounds. Guided home in the end by a mysterious King of Keys, the young traveler offers readers a key of her own: “A hundred pencils, swift as rain,/writing on sheets of beaten gold/would not be quick enough to hold/the strange adventures/shadows hold.” Bon voyage. (Picture book. 7-10)