SOMETIMES A WALL...

Rhyme, rhythm, and simple art—all including references to walls—show children expressing different emotions and behaviors.

The pages are sturdy and shiny, with plenty of bright-white negative space for the colorful artwork and sparse words. All words are printed in spindly, black capitals in a typeface that emulates hand-lettering. The text scans well and uses a fairly complex rhyme scheme, with each “verse” moving across several pages of artwork. The text cleverly begins by showing literal kinds of walls: “chalk wall / spill wall / rock wall / hill wall.” As it progresses, figurative meanings of walls appear. Loose, thin black lines and bright watercolors show racially diverse people throughout, initially happily engaged in activities involving walls. The text is already predicting trouble ahead on a double-page spread that shows children cooperatively designing and building what eventually becomes a life-sized castle of gray brick. If careful attention is not given to the art’s details, it is easy to miss the growing tension between the light-skinned kid in the shirt with vertical blue stripes and the ruddy-faced kid in the shirt with horizontal blue stripes. The latter child apparently enlists others in cruelty to the former, but the bully’s increasing megalomania leads eventually to loneliness and isolation. There is an interesting balance between the fantasy of children building a life-sized castle and the reality of their feelings and behaviors. The end reassures readers that reconciliation is possible.

Mending walls for the nursery crowd.