The Dictionary Story

Prior collaborators Jeffers and Winston used type as a dynamic visual element in A Child of Books, and it takes center stage too in this title—a quick-moving tale about a dictionary, “never quite sure of herself” among other books’ clear arcs. When the dictionary resolves to “bring her words to life,” an alligator promptly pushes two columns of A definitions apart like curtains and bursts theatrically onto the page. Alligator takes off, crossing left to right over arrayed definitions, tripping over illustrated Cloud, and “smelling something Delicious on the D pages.” Donut, anxious not to be eaten, accidentally rolls into Ghost, then plunges onward, startling Moon, who’s “surprised to see two words from the start of the dictionary.” The work features the leaves of a real dictionary within its own narrative spreads, setting up pleasing tension between unruly cartooned dictionary denizens and lines of crisp type, which droop and slide alarmingly under the characters’ pressure. Chaos ensues between the beings, until the dictionary manages to put her pages in order again. It’s a careful-what-you-wish-for story whose meta conceit and comic pacing would tickle any lexicographer. Ages 3–7. Agent: Paul Moreton, Bell Lomax Moreton. (Aug.)