★ 08/31/2020
In rhymes and nighttime interiors that recall Goodnight Moon, Caldecott Honoree Ellis (Du Iz Tak?) imagines a space in which everything is neatly divided down the middle. Rendered in gouache on cream-colored pages, half pieces of furniture appear eclectically antique as “the light of the half moon/ shines down on the half room.” A feline is half a sleek Siamese, and half a woman in a blue dress sits reading half a book beneath a stately half lamp. After a comet blazes through the sky, “half a knock on half a door” reveals the woman’s missing component. Magically, with a delicious joining-up noise—“SHOOOOOOP”—the two fuse, and the now whole woman, freckled and red-haired, dances off into the night. The room remains behind her, cat halves battling it out before each settles down on the half rug in peace. The woman’s mid-story reunion, so profound and complete, may for some relegate the ending to distraction, but by centering the fragmentary, Ellis offers a strange, thrilling logic and invites readers to engage with a concept fundamental to children’s experience: liminality. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)
In rhymes and nighttime interiors that recall Goodnight Moon, Caldecott Honoree Ellis (Du Iz Tak?) imagines a space in which everything is neatly divided down the middle...The woman’s mid-story reunion, so profound and complete, may for some relegate the ending to distraction, but by centering the fragmentary, Ellis offers a strange, thrilling logic and invites readers to engage with a concept fundamental to children’s experience: liminality.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In the Half Room isn’t a sequel to “Goodnight Moon,” and it’s not about dreams, per se, but it’s suffused with a playful dream logic that likely would have tickled Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, not to mention Lewis Carroll and René Magritte. The writer-illustrator Carson Ellis won a 2017 Caldecott Honor for her story told in gibberish, “Du Iz Tak?” — and this new one shares its predecessor’s trust in children’s willingness to be simultaneously puzzled and delighted, to let a story come to them.
—The New York Times Book Review
In cadences reminiscent of Margaret Wise Brown’s soothing narratives, Ellis introduces the interior: “Half a window / Half a door / Half a rug on half a floor.” True and near rhymes jostle gently in the lulling text...Visually charming and a bit disarming, this invites dialogue between caregivers and young children.
—Kirkus Reviews
It’s a genuinely offbeat story embracing absurdity, and cat lovers everywhere will easily accept the asocial cat-halves refusing to “shoop” and merely falling asleep next to each other. A wholly entertaining tale.
—The Horn Book
With a moonlit setting and simple, repetitive phrasing, Caldecott Honor-winner Ellis' (Du Iz Tak?, 2016) latest offering gives a nod to Goodnight Moon...Silly and sweet, this comforting book will be wholly embraced by children as a new bedtime favorite.
—Booklist
The author of Du Iz Tak? has developed another book that is sure to stretch the imagination and welcome whimsy...The text primarily consists of naming each item on the page, but does so in a simple rhyming pattern and cadence that is reminiscent of Goodnight Moon. It is a quiet book, one that would be good for bedtime.
—School Library Journal
The traditional rhyming nighttime benediction takes an enjoyably weird turn in this bedtime story from Ellis (Du Iz Tak?, BCCB 12/16)...Compositions shift between focus on individual items and views of the overall scene in yet another echo of Goodnight Moon, and the details are sturdily painted with vigor while the creamy backgrounds enhance the crepuscular flavor. (Adults will also appreciate the joke that the reader is perusing half of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.) The matter-of-fact oddity provides a nursery-rhyme feel and a bit of a twist that will intrigue youngsters more interested in dreaming than sleeping.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
10/01/2020
K-Gr 2—The author of Du Iz Tak? has developed another book that is sure to stretch the imagination and welcome whimsy—it may also prompt a few people, children included, to scratch their heads. In this stark, brief book appear objects that have been halved: shoes, cats, a rug, a door, all rich with color against a white background. Half of a woman appears but suddenly, "shoooooop," her two halves meld into one, allowing her to run out into the night to greet the half-moon while the half-lamp, half-cats, half-chair, and other household items remain indoors. The text primarily consists of naming each item on the page, but does so in a simple rhyming pattern and cadence that is reminiscent of Goodnight Moon. It is a quiet book, one that would be good for bedtime. Like David Macaulay's postmodern Black and White, the book invites multiple interpretations; but without the abundance of visual and textual information or clues of that book or Anthony Browne's Voices in the Park, this feels unfinished and bare bones. VERDICT For collections seeking books that play with, break, and challenge traditions, this would be one to add—if readers can escape the nagging inner voice asking, "But what does it mean?"—Maggie Chase, Boise State Univ., ID
2020-07-28
Under a half moon, a glimpse of a half woman in a cottage full of half things invites speculation and puzzlement.
In cadences reminiscent of Margaret Wise Brown’s soothing narratives, Ellis introduces the interior: “Half a window / Half a door / Half a rug on half a floor.” True and near rhymes jostle gently in the lulling text. When “half a knock on half a door” reveals “half a face you’ve seen before,” the half woman—who presents White with freckles and long, carrot-colored hair—is reunited with her other half. After a satisfying “SHOOOOOP” joins the halves together, she revels outside under the moon. Next, the nether end of the pet cat is at the door, sparking two “half cats / in a half-cat fight.” In Ellis’ appealing gouache paintings, the cat halves spar in a series of spot illustrations. A page turn reveals a partial resolution: “Two half cats asleep / Good night.” Young readers might wonder why the cat’s halves don’t “shoop” together at the end, as the woman’s halves had. Perhaps it’s a nod to the consummate self-satisfaction of felines: Ellis’ dedication calls out both her son and her eight cats, past and present. Even as she evokes the coziness of Goodnight Moon, Ellis injects a modern, disquieting note by avoiding “shooping” all things whole.
Visually charming and a bit disarming, this invites dialogue between caregivers and young children. (Picture book. 4-8)
