The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I don't really like the cover of this book, and am not too interested in Raschka's style for this book. It seems really clownish and garish, but he also controls it very well, and I find his compositions and human expressive use of human figures to be in a tight complementary relationship with the text. It moves between symmetrical and complementary, never working into contradictory illustration.
Juster has noticed a little slice of life that is worth expanding on the way he did here, and it has more depth than you might think at the start. I also found the balance of nostalgia with realism to be just about right--not smarmy or schmaltzy.
So my mom's mom and dad had a huge second-floor picture window that overlooked the deep valley of Big Cottonwood Creek, and only about 15 feet of yard before the drop off. I remember taking an extension ladder scaffold from grandpa's garage and setting it up right below this window and then walking past and waving at grandma. She was so shocked and laughed out loud! This book made me think of that.
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