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| Author: Chris Van Allsburg |
One couldn't select a more delightful
and exciting premise for a children's
book than the tale of a young boy lying
awake on Christmas Eve only to have
Santa Claus sweep by and take him on
a trip with other children to the North
Pole. And one couldn't ask for a more
talented artist and writer to tell the
story than Van Allsburg. A sculptor
who entered the genre nonchalantly when
he created a children's book as a diversion
from his sculpting, he won the 1986
Caldecott Medal for this book, one of
several award winners he's produced. The
Polar Express rings with vitality
and wonder.
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From School Library Journal
Grade 1-3 Given a talented and aggressive imagination, even the challenge
of as cliche-worn a subject as Santa Claus can be met effectively. Van
Allsburg's Polar Express is an old-fashioned steam train that takes children
to the North Pole on Christmas Eve to meet the red-suited gentleman and
to see him off on his annual sleigh ride. This is a personal retelling
of the adult storyteller's adventures as a youngster on that train. The
telling is straight, thoughtfully clean-cut and all the more mysterious
for its naive directness; the message is only a bit less direct: belief
keeps us young at heart. The full-page images are theatrically lit. Colors
are muted, edges of forms are fuzzy, scenes are set sparsely, leaving
the details to the imagination. The light comes only from windows of buildings
and the train or from a moon that's never depicted. Shadows create darkling
spaces and model the naturalistic figures of children, wolves, trees,
old-fashioned furniture and buildings. Santa Claus and his reindeer seem
like so many of the icons bought by parents to decorate yards and rooftops:
static, posed with stereotypic gestures. These are scenes from a memory
of long ago, a dreamy reconstruction of a symbolic experience, a pleasant
remembrance rebuilt to fufill a current wish: if only you believe, you
too will hear the ringing of the silver bell that Santa gave him and taste
rich hot chocolate in your ride through the wolf-infested forests of reality.
Van Allsburg's express train is one in which many of us wish to believe.
Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. |
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| Ages 4-8 |
$18.95 (hardcover)
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