Lies’s (Bats at the Ballgame) marvelously lifelike paintings of a kleptomaniac magpie and a mouse with superior judgment do most of the storytelling in a story anchored on debut author Springman’s string of quantity words (“Lots. Plenty. A bit much”). The first spread shows a single word at left (“Nothing”), a long expanse of blank backdrop, and a despondent magpie all alone at the far right. A mouse offers a glass marble to the delighted magpie: “Something.” A Lego block makes “a few,” and a coin makes “several”; the magpie’s three treasures are shown in its nest under the bird’s dramatically enlarged feet. In no time, the magpie assembles mounds of junk: “Way too much.” The mouse calls a halt—“Enough!”—as the magpie is buried under its own treasure. The fable offers a finely drawn, restrained “less is more” lesson about attachment to things (so finely drawn, in fact, that some children with overflowing toy boxes may not recognize themselves). Lies’s striking paintings of the magpie’s flashy wings, swooping tail, and gleaming eyes—as good as any field guide’s—are the story’s real treasures. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)
"Dramatic paintings add depth and foreboding to a lesson about excessive materialism."—Kirkus "The fable offers a finely drawn, restrained 'less is more' lesson about attachment to things."—Publishers Weekly "This is a timely, clearly needed fable for contemporary society as it tries to unravel itself from excessive materialism. Ideal for discussions about reducing consumption."—School Library Journal, starred review "This minimally told story delivers a strong antimaterialism message, and kids with a habit of amassing stuff may, like Magpie, recognize their own reflections."—Booklist "The lesson about living simply carries here, gracefully communicated both in the illustrations and the spare text."—Bulletin "The message here is overt, but the treatment is clever, effective, and commendably understated."—Horn Book —
PreS-Gr 3—Told in a spare 27 words, this visual tale features an inauspicious magpie, a corvid well known for its intelligence and acquisitiveness. The three-part tale can be summarized as "more…less…enough." The magpie and a mouse start with nothing, find a few shiny, cast-off items, and hustle them to their nests. Then suddenly, and not surprisingly, their nests are bursting with stuff: keys, coins, LEGOs, marbles, combs, necklaces, Tinkertoys, padlocks, and more. Young readers will find themselves in a Waldo world of things to point to and identify. The paintings are highly realistic and up close, in acrylic on handmade paper, and the text is hand lettered, which brings home its ecological message. The tide turns on one of the darkest-hued pages, when the magpie, famously reflected in a mirror, recognizes that enough is enough. But it is too late, and here lies the message. This is a timely, clearly needed fable for contemporary society as it tries to unravel itself from excessive materialism. Ideal for discussions about reducing consumption.—Sara Lissa Paulson, American Sign Language and English Lower School PS 347, New York City
Dramatic paintings add depth and foreboding to a lesson about excessive materialism. Magpies are famous for collecting shiny objects, and this protagonist is a classic exemplar. At first, he stands in the bottom-right corner of a blank spread, downcast. Composition and expression display his isolated melancholy; the text murmurs, "Nothing." A mouse gives him a marble, which sets the bird to collecting objects and building many nests to hold them. Text remains sparse: "A few, / several, // more / and more and more. // Lots." The plot is simple: The collected objects become so numerous that a nest crashes to the ground, burying the magpie. (Mice unbury him; he's uninjured.) The unsurprising moral is that two or three objects are, "Yes, enough" (though the magpie still needs the mouse's persuasion to accept that lesson). Lies contrasts pale, faintly patterned backgrounds of handmade paper with forceful close-ups in acrylic and colored pencil. Large, dark areas inside the nests show stolen items--Lego, penny, toothbrush, binky, spoon--as identifiable but no longer shiny, emphasizing Springman's message. The illustration of the crash is downright scary. This magpie's leg-band goes unexplained; does it symbolize entrapment, civilization or the infinite danger (the numbers echo Pi) of hoarding? Young readers not overwhelmed by the visual intensity will chant the minimal text; older ones will note questions about accumulation, materialism, friendship--and how to decide what's meaningful. (Picture book. 3-8)
