Review: Chloe

Chloe by Peter McCarty

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Okay, the book's turn-off-your-tv message rings loud and clear, but this book doesn't push me to take its message too seriously. The playfulness in how Chloe draws people into another mode made me laugh out loud when the giant monster on the tv even stopped to look out of the tv set at what was going on.

McCarty has an animator's sense for faces, gestures, and angles for helping us sense what characters are thinking. The brothers and sisters cock up their ears immediately even though the popping is represented with brilliant restraint. This restraint applied to the potential 'message' as well, with the dad and the mom sending the kids all to bed so they could do the rest of the bubble wrap. But there was no 'we learned our lesson' we'll give up tv and return to the old ways, because we have strayed.

I was most impressed by the end sheets. I sat and looked at his work on the individual leaves in the tree, and thought about how much time it would take to do it that way. Drawing is so frequently more impressive than painting.



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