The Carpenter

In this wordless Brazilian import, a small overalls-clad child's attention is diverted from his or her electronic screen by a carpenter's folding wood ruler. In a series of scenes, the child plays with the yellow ruler, happily shaping it into a house, a car, an elephant, and a dinosaur. Pleasure turns to alarm after the child fashions a whale, which brings a rush of water through which the child must swim back to the carpenter's workbench--where, as it turns out, for the book's entire duration the carpenter has been building a small wooden boat. Escape! When the child fashions the folding ruler into a final shape--a triangular sail--the two sail off together, right out of the book. The wordless spreads are effortless to "read": all the detail in the illustrations is restricted to the materials on the carpenter's bench (careful readers will spot the boat blueprints from the very beginning); backgrounds are composed entirely of white space, keeping focus on the action. Child and adult share the same skin color (dark brown) and overalls color (orange), establishing a connection between the two without necessitating a word. The emotions presented are child-sized but authentic, and the theme that imaginative play is more rewarding--and requires more ingenuity--than electronic games is expertly communicated. martha v. parravano