Since I'm hoping to have this blog give the false impression that I am a sunny and equanimical person, who likes the majority of books that she reads, let me balance out that cranky last post with a brief and praiseful offering: Antoinette Portis's Not a Box. It is good.
Oh, fine, here's a little more. It slightly looks like the first draft of a new Japanese children's character, but the tribute to imagination just works despite residual hyper-cuteness. The conceit is that the black lines represent the "real"--the little rabbit positioned in, on, or beside that cardboard box--while the super-imposed red drawings are pure fantasy--the box as building on fire, robot, spaceship, hot-air balloon, or more. A very prosaically-minded adult voice tries to squelch each imaginative move from off-screen ("Why are you spraying water on that box?" for example), but the rabbit/child sticks to his/her guns, insisting endlessly the title phrase. It captures very simply both the beauty and the sadness that children feel in realizing their mental landscape is not broadcast automatically to those they love.
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