Julie Just
Like a more impish version of Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Gaiman's book offers riddling advice that could be for young or old.
—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
"Touch the wooden gate in the wall you never saw before," invites Gaiman's poem, first published in A Wolf at the Door (2000), reborn as a lavishly illustrated small-format picture book. A bipedal, bushy-tailed cat, wearing attire befitting Robin Hood, enters a fairy tale landscape filled with subtle and obvious allusions to familiar characters and stories. A cottage door leads him into a hallway of dramatic arches where a cat with an injured paw becomes his companion ("if any creature tells you that it hungers, feed it. If it tells you that it is dirty, clean it"). The wanderers press on, encountering a castle containing three sequestered princesses ("Do not trust the youngest. Walk on"), a ghostly ferryman, and other creatures. Recalling his work on Gaiman's Blueberry Girl, Vess's compositions are distinguished by elegant, winding lines--gnarled vines, plumes of smoke, dragon tails--and intimate frames that evoke moments of gentle wisdom. Young readers should relish the chimerical vision while older Gaiman fans should grasp the underlying suggestion that the compass used to navigate fairy tales can also guide us in the real world. All ages. (May)
From the Publisher
Like a more impish version of Dr. Seuss’s ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” Gaiman’s book offers riddling advice that could be for young or old.” — New York Times Book Review
“ Young readers should relish the chimerical vision while older Gaiman fans should grasp the underlying suggestion that the compass used to navigate fairy tales can also guide us in the real world” — Publishers Weekly
“A magical, incantatory poem. It could be instructions for a child, a writer, a newly minted adult or an elder. It strikes immediately at the place where stories live and provides a feast of archetypes. ” — Kirkus Reviews
New York Times Book Review
Like a more impish version of Dr. Seuss’s ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” Gaiman’s book offers riddling advice that could be for young or old.
Kirkus Reviews
A magical, incantatory poem-or perhaps a homily-first published in the Ellen Datlow/Terri Windling collection A Wolf at the Door in 2000 is made new with Vess's art. It could be instructions for a child, a writer, a newly minted adult or an elder. It strikes immediately at the place where stories live and provides a feast of archetypes. The narrator instructs a furry cat/fox-like creature that walks upright and wears a tunic and boots, of course, to go through the gate he hasn't seen before (after saying "please") and walk down the path. Don't touch the imp knocker on the green door, give the old woman what she asks for and she "will point the way to the castle." Help those who need it. Don't be jealous; "diamonds and roses" are as nasty as toads when they fall from your lips, "colder, too, and sharper, and they cut." Remember your own name, ride the eagle, be polite. The sinuous landscape is peopled with figures readers will recognize, like the Goose Girl and a crowned frog, and those they might not, like trolls and giants and dragons. Roses, trees, land and sea have shimmering life of their own and wind around the words as if made for them, which of course they were. (Picture book. 7 & up)
