DIMITY DUMPTY

Graham throws new light onto a familiar nursery rhyme, casting Humpty as the reckless scion of a family of circus acrobats, and giving him a very shy little sister who bravely comes through in the clutch. The writing and the art are equally exquisite. While the rest of her family is wowing crowds under the Big Top, Dimity takes her flute (made from a ball-point pen core) outdoors, to play “as soft as a snail on a cabbage leaf, / quiet as the grass growing on the hill.” Dimity’s retreat from the spotlight comes to a brief end, however, when her feckless sibling falls from a wall while spraying it with graffiti. Having competently splinted his broken leg and patched his leaky shell with her shirt, she dashes into the ring to plead for help from the crowd. The illustrations combine delicacy of line and color with lots of richly comic details, depicting the diminutive Dumptys and their comfortably appointed egg-carton trailer amid a full-sized circus, and giving Humpty a suitably raffish look. The tale’s entire cast pauses at the end to admire Dimity’s quiet courage, and listen as she plays, to quote the Ringmaster, “the music of the heavens.” You can almost hear it. (Picture book. 6-8)