Sleep Like a Tiger by Mary Logue
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
God save the Eastern European illustrators (okay, so maybe she's not originally from Europe--I don't know)! Anyway, her style is highly reminiscent of Dusan Kallay, Peter Sis, Stepan Zavrel. Zagarenski is the hero in this book. I was smitten on the second spread when the mom and the girl showed up with little wheels under their feet. These seemed to represent motion, but then throughout the rest of the book they showed up in all sorts of odd places where no motion was needed. The entire composition style avoids stark diagonal lines that would normally indicate movement or high intensity dynamics. Everything stays vertical and horizontal, helping emphasize the texture she does so well. I had to sit and look at the whale pages for a good, long time. All this old-world genius wasted on a story about parents using reverse psychology to get their girl to go to sleep. Gads. I was so waiting for the girl to pull a Miyazaki/Sendak move and somehow find her way out into the wonderland she imagined on the first spread--it had such promise!
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