THE BIG BLUE SPOT

Adults will be understandably wary of this, as concept books often skirt a dangerous line to dumbness or silliness, losing the point entirely. But Holwitz’s first picture book for the most part hits the mark as it tips and rolls to its sweet point, twisting a child’s imagination in and out of reality and concept. It’s quite simple really: a Big Blue Spot on the page comes alive and drips into the next page to see what’s next. Eventually, of course, it meets a big Yellow Spot with which to develop a green friendship in the middle if you tip the pages up. The narrative choice is to stay on beam as a smear in a book and not encounter crazy adventures out of it. Simple concept and, one imagines, a simply profound impression for the developing imaginative child. This is both a strength and weakness—the problem with a concept book such as this. The child goes, “Ha, ha, yup, I get it,” puts it aside after one reading and moves on to storybooks, never to return except by action—in future problem-solving experiments, or future art lessons, or in other words all through future life. Meantime, the adults keep thumbing through concept books, wondering whether they should have ever bought one for their kooky kid—or stuck with Little Blue and Little Yellow. (Picture book. 4-6)