Sarabella’s Thinking Cap

Punning on the plural of cerebellum, Schachner (the SkippyJon Jones series) introduces a girl who is at her happiest when she’s alone with her thoughts. With her “feet on the ground and her head in the clouds,” Sarabella is beloved by her passionately creative family, but her teacher, Mr. Fantozzi, hopes she’ll find a way to focus, as well as share her thoughts. Inspired by a classroom assignment, Sarabella crafts a thinking cap made of paper, magazine clippings, stickers, and stamps, allowing her classmates to see the swirl of ideas in her head. Readers have much more access to Sarabella’s thoughts thanks to Schachner’s sprawling mixed-media collages, themselves a tangle of imagery and loosely formed associations: in one jam-packed thought balloon, lithographic images of sea turtles, sheep, and a cabbage jockey for space with hand-drawn ants, words in English and French, and a cartoon string bean. Mr. Fantozzi is a memorable force in Sarabella’s life: he never shames her imaginative wanderings and instead celebrates her inquisitiveness. Readers, particularly introspective types, are sure to see the magic in Sarabella’s perspective. Ages 5–8. (Sept.)