Swing Café

The compact trim size of this sophisticated work makes Dautremer's dark, bewitching paintings hard to see, and the dense font can be difficult to read. Readers should persist. Norac's story stars a Brazilian jazz-singing cricket named Zaz who dreams of New York City. The death of her butterfly friend Miro releases her; she hops a ride in a flowered hat, befriends a blue fly, and arrives at last at the Swing Café. Zaz and the other characters are portrayed as stylish humans with just a trace of their insect nature—Zaz's red skirt suggests a segmented abdomen; a beetle's shell is an umbrella. Dautremer's visual imagination taps the subconscious brilliantly: Miro, at the end of his short life, lies cradled in spider webs; when Zaz performs at last, it's beneath an old Victrola made of newspaper. Norac's writing is equally arresting: "[Zaz] has a transparent body, so you will be able to see the beat of her heart." An enclosed CD supplies cherished jazz gems from Ellington, Calloway, Fitzgerald, and more, which accompany a lovely audio recording of the story. Intelligent, poetic, and provocative entertainment. Ages 5–7. (Sept.)