The King and Nothing

Tallec (A Better Best Friend) presents a droll thought experiment. What happens when a wealthy king—a stubbily drawn, pale-skinned figure who wears a gold crown and a yellow sweatsuit—meets an unattainable object? He’s used to having everything (“And when I say ‘everything,’ I mean everything: caterpillars on bicycles, bicycles with caterpillar wheels”), a collection of objects that he obsessively arranges and displays, until one day he realizes that he lacks Nothing. In the search that follows, the king discovers that everything that seems like Nothing is, well, not Nothing. An empty desert has “a tiny cactus popping out somewhere,” deep space boasts shooting stars, and when he sets fire to a diminutive leaf, he finds that it still produces “teeny, tiny ashes... not Nothing!” Playful language and signature-style cartoons help readers take hold of two abstractions: the concept of acquisitive behavior, and the idea of naught. In this fable, the monarch realizes that everything in the universe has significance—a revelation that leads him to a different way of being. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)