THE GIRL IN THE CASTLE INSIDE THE MUSEUM

The princess-like girl of the title is lonely within her idyllic, sequestered world until she is visited by children, either in dreams or in reality. Her solution is to address readers directly and ask for a picture to hang in her solitary castle to “keep her company in a magical world.” Written by an eloquent fairy-tale writer-scholar and illustrated by a much-honored picture-book artist, this defies easy definition. Clearly “the museum” represents the metaphorical archive where fairy-tale collections regrettably gather dust, and this enigmatic tale is a plea for children to enter their immutable worlds within worlds, lest the tales be isolated and lost forever. The text is grandly supported by Ceccoli’s chimerically beautiful paintings rendered in acrylic, which depict the girl’s phantasmagorical world. A bit of a mystical allegory, but also an invitation too good to decline for the fairy-tale lovers among us. (Picture book. 4-8)