Shadow

In a nearly wordless, nearly monochrome fantasy, a straight-haired girl—perhaps the same exuberant heroine of Lee's Wave—finds a secret world in the shadows cast by the light bulb in a storage room. The pages are meant to flip from bottom to top. With the top page held at an angle (say, while lap reading) the book becomes the room itself: on the top page, delicately drawn household objects cluster (a hose hangs over a ladder, the sole separates from a boot), while the bottom page becomes the floor on which shadows are projected. The girl starts out tentatively, making a bird shadow with her hands. As her imagination flourishes, the hose becomes a snake, the ladder a glade of trees, and a wolflike creature manifests; the forest teems with animal shadows, the wolf threatens, and the line between the "real" and imagined realms is blurred. Only the cry "Dinner's ready!" stops the action. Or does it? Once again, Lee focuses on a single idea, develops it with rich imaginative power, and executes it with grace and finesse. All ages. (Oct.)