Iris in Violet

by Gretchen Hoffmann

Overview

Iris in Violet is a trip down the rabbit hole --- again! But, unlike Alice in Alice in Wonderland, it isn't a rabbit that Iris follows but the whirling, swirling flight of a blackbird that leads her through a dream world of strange and beautiful places, filled with strange and beautiful things.

There's the puddle mermaid because, we discover, puddles have mermaids just as teardrops do. There's the turtle whose shell is like a chest of drawers that keeps opening and closing with fish leaping out from inside; the peacock who spreads his tail into a Ferris wheel, and the white cat who drifts in a field of dandelion puffs. They say Iris is lost, but Iris doesn't think so, not as long as she has the blackbird to follow. And after all of her adventures and her long journey, where do you think the blackbird takes her? . . . home, to her own backyard.

The color of Iris' dress seems to have had a hand in this wild adventure, according to the blackbird. Where does a color go? the blackbird asks. Come and see in Iris in Violet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639883349
Publisher:	Atmosphere Press
Publication date:	05/13/2022
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.21(d)

Editorial Reviews

2022-09-23
In Hoffmann’s debut middle-grade fantasy novella, a young girl gets lost in a wondrous, mystifying dreamland.

Iris, out for a walk one windy day, follows a blackbird she spots in the sky. The chase takes her to a strange room where she sees a doe in a mirror but can’t see her own reflection. It’s the first of a series of bizarre places Iris comes across, and she meets a number of talking animals, trees, and other objects along the way. There’s a turtle whose shell is made of little drawers (with fish that hop from one drawer to another); a dog-sized snail that Iris rides (although not very far); and a goat with golden keys woven into his beard. She’s quickly lost in this world of “out-of-the-way kinds of things,” which include a picture from a book that suddenly appears in front of Iris, a hallway that expands and turns into a field of dandelion puffs, and flowers that can apparently knock down walls or create floods. All the while, Iris is determined to find the blackbird, even if she can’t quite explain why she’s after it. Hoffmann’s tale, which recall Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is delightfully surreal, teeming with inexplicable sights, including a giant octopus in a forest, floating as if underwater. Despite her many conversations with myriad creatures, Iris tends to be confused. A multicolored peacock, for instance, assures Iris that she’s awake only to suggest seconds later that she’s “probably” sleeping. Such interactions and many other narrative details possess a lyrical quality: “She approached the fireflies wisping lightly here and there among the shadows.” There’s a pervading sense of serenity, as well; Iris is rarely frightened by anything she encounters, and none of the ever changing world seems chaotic or entirely out of control. The ending is, rather appropriately, open to interpretation.

A diverting, remarkable story of otherworldly happenings.

Kirkus Reviews