In Shadowland

In alluring alternating pages of color and black-and-white, Anno invites readers to visit the Shadowland, where processions of shadows arrive in winter after the sun disappears from the sky. A watchman monitors the traffic between the two separate worlds, summoning the appropriate shadows as soon as the sun appears again. He spots a tiny shadow in his telescopea little match girl has lit one of her wares for warmth. Soon the watchman arrives to light more matches for her and their shadows are joined together to form ""a single shadow that looks like a witch.'' They are chased away by the townspeople and flee to Shadowland, where the king declares a wedding. To Anno's many laurels a new one is added with this edifying tale, showing him to be a successful matchmaker and mythmaker. His Platonic world of pure form where where all is made out of one single matter``shadowness''is directly joined through the watchman and the match girl into the concrete world of color and variety. Appropriately, and quite remarkably, Anno has used an intricate papercut technique to create the numerous figures of Shadowland from only one piece of paper. This is a brilliant work. Ages 4-7. (March)