WHO DONE IT?

The talented French author/illustrator Tallec returns with a puzzle game in which readers are challenged to pick the transgressor out of the lineup.

At nearly 12 inches tall by 6 inches wide, this book is to be rotated 90 degrees and read latitudinally. On the top of the top page, as it were, Tallec poses a question: “Who didn’t get enough sleep?” “Who is nervous?” “Who forgot a swimsuit?” (That last one is easy.) The rest of the double-page up-and-down spread has a line of four or five characters—as in a police perp walk—on each page to choose from, populated by kids, anthropomorphic animals, and animallike animals. Sometimes there may be more than one answer, and sometimes the answer isn’t altogether clear-cut: “Who ate all the jam?” Well, it could be the fox with the jam smeared all over its face, the queasy-looking rabbit, or the humongous dog—things aren’t always as they appear. Each fine-lined character has a soupçon of personality, and the paints’ shading and highlighting dazzle against the white backdrop. The limited amount of movement the characters are allowed is tapped to its deepest: in “Who’s shy about dancing?” the mouse is firing off a mean petite allegro en pointe. “Who couldn’t hold it?” (another easy one) is actually funny, not the usual desperate bid for yuks.

One page of pleasure after another.