On My Street

The Dutch team behind The Man in the Clouds imagines a street of fantasy houses and the colorful characters that inhabit them; the houses appear on the left side of each spread, with a portrait of the owner and a short rhyme on the right. The charm of the crisp-edged, light-filled paintings lies in the way the neighbors are portrayed against type. “Lightfingers” Louie’s expression is calm and personable—yet he’s a thief. “Six-shooter James” the cowboy looks a little shy, and Mrs. McQueen the queen appears mild and a tad absentminded—a far cry from the haughty caricature it would have been easy to draw. There’s a ballet dancer in a gypsy caravan, an old woman in a knitted cottage, and even a goldfish bowl with a stout mermaid inside. Only the translation is puzzling. The too-facile verse is out of step with the delicacy of the portraits, as in the poem that accompanies the concluding portrait of Meinderts and Fienieg’s home: “The best house is last and it’s mine,/ Here I write poems that I think are quite fine.” Ages 2–up. (May)