Scan barcode
A review by dragonbitebooks
The Dark Lord and the Seamstress by J.M. Frey
4.0
Originally published on my blog, Nine Pages.
I won a copy of this picture book via Goodreads‘ giveaways. I was intrigued by the title and by the summary and, yes, the cover. I was a bit let down to open the book and discover line drawings. While I won’t vehemently protest black and white in a picture book as I heard one girl do this month, I admit that I expect color, especially from modern picture books, and I certainly at least appreciate shading. This book allows for black and no other color, though it does use crosshatching to indicate shadow. I and later my roommate consoled me by deciding that this will just have to become a coloring book as well as a picture book. (I’ve taken no colored pencils or crayons to it yet.) The illustrations show an anime style influence but manage to avoid seeming too cartoonish, and the characters are expressive. The text is written in rhyming verse, which was really rather well executed though in places the rhyme slipped just a little. I think it will be best read aloud because of that format.
On the whole, I appreciate the story as a clever adaptation of the old fairy tale type (perhaps AT425C: Beauty and the Beast or maybe AT 425J: The Heroine Serves in Hell for her Bridegroom).
The last few pages at first threw me. I balked at the idea of the angels wearing the badge of the devil’s love on their robes, but the more I thought about it, the less it bothered me, and the less I saw it as a marking angels as belonging to the devil, and the more I saw it as an idea that servants of the Judeo-Christian God would wear badges denoting the power of love over the darkest evils.
Wait a minute! First, the author found my blog post! And that’s exciting! But more exciting still is that this book was designed as a coloring book, and this means that this book is something new. There are a few coloring books that will attempt to tell a story (usually these are movie adaptations), but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture book meant to be a coloring book. So let’s revise my opinion. This is a purposefully interactive picture book, one that invites the reader to capture their imagination on the pages. Kids love coloring books. Or I did as a kid. I also loved picture books. But there are probably kids who enjoy one or the other. This book might invite artists to enjoy a story. It invites readers to become artists. Interactive picture books (like Hervé Tullet’s) are on the way up, but I don’t think I’ve yet seen one this interactive.
I won a copy of this picture book via Goodreads‘ giveaways. I was intrigued by the title and by the summary and, yes, the cover. I was a bit let down to open the book and discover line drawings. While I won’t vehemently protest black and white in a picture book as I heard one girl do this month, I admit that I expect color, especially from modern picture books, and I certainly at least appreciate shading. This book allows for black and no other color, though it does use crosshatching to indicate shadow. I and later my roommate consoled me by deciding that this will just have to become a coloring book as well as a picture book. (I’ve taken no colored pencils or crayons to it yet.) The illustrations show an anime style influence but manage to avoid seeming too cartoonish, and the characters are expressive. The text is written in rhyming verse, which was really rather well executed though in places the rhyme slipped just a little. I think it will be best read aloud because of that format.
On the whole, I appreciate the story as a clever adaptation of the old fairy tale type (perhaps AT425C: Beauty and the Beast or maybe AT 425J: The Heroine Serves in Hell for her Bridegroom).
The last few pages at first threw me. I balked at the idea of the angels wearing the badge of the devil’s love on their robes, but the more I thought about it, the less it bothered me, and the less I saw it as a marking angels as belonging to the devil, and the more I saw it as an idea that servants of the Judeo-Christian God would wear badges denoting the power of love over the darkest evils.
Wait a minute! First, the author found my blog post! And that’s exciting! But more exciting still is that this book was designed as a coloring book, and this means that this book is something new. There are a few coloring books that will attempt to tell a story (usually these are movie adaptations), but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture book meant to be a coloring book. So let’s revise my opinion. This is a purposefully interactive picture book, one that invites the reader to capture their imagination on the pages. Kids love coloring books. Or I did as a kid. I also loved picture books. But there are probably kids who enjoy one or the other. This book might invite artists to enjoy a story. It invites readers to become artists. Interactive picture books (like Hervé Tullet’s) are on the way up, but I don’t think I’ve yet seen one this interactive.