THE COLLECTOR OF HEADS

A quick-witted Brazilian import asks big questions within a mildly creepy framework.

There are all sorts of things out there that people like to collect. Facts. Travels. Battles. But Rosália? She collects heads. There’s the architect’s head, which is filled with thoughts and emotions, such as “the fear of tilting her straight lines” and “the dream of living at a time when the hanging gardens of Babylon were in bloom.” There’s the child’s head, which contains “a nosy dog called Zipolite,” and a rich lady’s head with its “eight ways of forgetting her loneliness.” Somehow the book walks the tightrope between the body horror of keeping heads in jars and the sheer delight of what those heads might contain. Brought to life by art that’s a mixed-media bonanza of different styles and feelings, this illogical logic ties the narrative together, inviting children to respond to “What’s in your head?” by drawing in the book and then, inevitably, to speculate about what might be in Rosália’s. Strange and sweet, mysterious and open-ended, this is a book for introspective kids, the ones unafraid to ask the big questions. Characters’ skin tones are depicted in a wide range of vibrant hues.

Introspective intelligentsia in a clever format encourages readers to ponder what our personalities boil down to.