Her Idea

The book-loving heroine of The Best Book in the World returns for a second outing, a pyrotechnical display of color and line. Sozi, who gains a name this time around, wears a mini-dress, a superhero-style mask, and pigtails. A scatterbrained procrastinator, Sozi has swarms of good ideas, but she can’t work out how to capture them. In the story’s most charming conceit, her ideas are drawn as creatures with fishlike heads and fluid, flexible bodies; they swim like schools of herring, but can also march in endless lines, like ants. When Sozi gets discouraged (“It was such a big task and she’d much rather play”), her ideas vanish—until a book appears to help her capture them. In an even more startling development, the book eventually swallows Sozi, as well: “Living in a book along with her friends.../ that’s the way this story ends.” Though Alexander’s verse offers little substance, and the story is disjointed, her polished spreads dazzle. Silkscreen-style swoops and swirls of scarlet, navy, teal, and yellow give each page outsize graphic impact. Ages 3–7. (Apr.)