Words with Wings and Magic Things

Burgess offers fantastical fragments and affirming messages throughout this rich trove of impish verse. In digitally colored pencil drawings, some stylistically reminiscent of Maurice Sendak’s in A Hole Is to Dig, Caldecott Medalist Salati offers slyly understated vignettes of children dancing, dreaming, encountering creatures, and more. Each of the work’s seven sections (including “Welcome,” “Wonders,” and “Wild”) is set off with gracefully realized full-color spreads. In one, a city street’s rats and pigeons become circus performers; in another, a fish-interested child begins to swim alongside a menagerie of sea life. Tracing themes of autonomy, fantasy, flight, and perception, this crisply exploratory collection never loses its essential playfulness: “To reach the place of things unseen,/ words can be your trampoline.” Characters are portrayed with various abilities, body types, and skin tones. Ages 5–9. (Mar.)