In the Jerusalem Forest - Hardcover

Críticas

"Readers will be happily confused by this picture book.Almost every page of the story--based on a piece by Israeli national poet Hayim Nahman Bialik--is gently disorienting. The narrator is a young girl walking through the woods with her mother, and as they look at the reflections in the water, she says, 'The forest is upside-down, ' and 'There in the water: the sky!' Kelner takes this as a challenge. In her paintings, the sky is often the same color as the water or the ground, and the characters' clothing matches the nature around them. The most challenging section is when the girl says, 'Ima and I see our reflections in the pond. We look the same, like two drops of rain.' ('Ima' is the Hebrew word for 'Mom.') This isn't quite true. The mother is tall, freckled, and redheaded. The daughter is more compact, and her skin is the pale brown of coffee ice cream. But the paintings include small details that mirror each other so that the characters really do start to look alike. Busheri adds off rhymes to the text at unexpected moments ('same' and 'rain, ' 'come' and 'sun'), which is both lovely and a bit startling. The imagery, both in the words and the pictures, is so beautiful that readers may be heartbroken when a ripple in the water takes the reflections away. People will be stunned by this book even if they're too astonished to explain why."--Kirkus Reviews

"A young girl and her ima (mother) walk hand in hand through the forest, enjoying the spring blossoms and reveling in the natural world all around them. When they come to a pond, the child is delighted to see her surroundings reflected in the still water. Then a breeze blows, rippling the water, and making the images all disappear. Busheri's lyrical story, inspired by Hayim Nahman Bialik's poem, 'The Pond, ' serves as an appreciation of the natural world as well as homage to Bialik, who is known as Israel's national poet. Kelner's colorful artwork emphasizes green and earth tones, punctuated by blue, purple, and red blossoms and birds. The style is somewhat casual (as if composed by a child with markers), but that does not detract from the art or render the figures unclear. While the story is slight, this makes a good introduction to a nature walk, and could lead to some interesting explorations of the properties of water and reflection. Appended with an author's note about Bialik and his poetry."--Booklist

Reseña del editor

A child and her mother take a walk in the forest near Jerusalem, gazing at their reflections in a rippling pond and appreciating their time together.