Neighbors

September 1, 2020
Grades K-3 When you live in an apartment, sometimes it's hard to wrap your head around the fact that your ceiling is someone else's floor, and your floor is someone else's ceiling. If you could reach through the wall, who might you touch? What are your neighbors doing right this very instant? Today is the day to find out. This debut picture book is almost entirely wordless and a completely transportive experience. Denisevich uses bright pops of reddish orange to draw attention to the protagonist among her soft, textured grayscale landscapes, leading up to an almost Oz-like color reveal in the final pages. While the story is a simple one that honors imagination crafted in solitude, the individual spreads offer a Where's Waldo?-type of immersive exploration to discover the details of the neighbors (from robots, mermaids, acrobats, and giant tortoises to witches, snake charmers, gnomes, and penguins), and the illustrations' meticulousness, rigorous symmetry, elegant textures, careful framing, and originality of perspective make the book feel like it was crafted with Wes Anderson-level artistry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

September 14, 2020
In this reflective picture book debut, a pale child moves into an old apartment building—a complex structure complete with an underground theater—and muses on sharing walls with strangers: “If I could stretch my hand through that wall, I could actually touch someone.” Working in graceful black-and-white wash with red highlights, Denisevich traces the wrought-iron arabesques of the building’s stair rails. A series of cutaway views represent possible goings-on: the apartments might be filled with ordinary people (a child practicing the flute), fairy-tale creatures (a theater full of mice), or nothing and no one (“What if there is nothing at all beyond the walls of my room?”). Soon, the child meets a neighbor; a possible friendship is signaled by hints of color. With artwork that imbues the protagonist’s thoughts with significance, Denisevich meditates on the way urban life is at once busy and solitary, public and private. Ages 5–8.

September 15, 2020
A move to a new apartment prompts a series of ruminations in a young grade schooler. The book opens on a gray European city. The child, dressed in red, ascends to apartment 12. This is the first time the narrator has had a room all to themselves. "But if you stop to think about it..." the child muses, "My ceiling is someone's floor, and my floor is someone's ceiling." As the child imagines these new neighbors, the perspective shifts to a cross-section of the five-story apartment building; the child's red dress and stuffed toy are the only spots of color. Readers peer in at a hive of activity: a family with many children playing; a gray-haired elder watching TV; someone on a toilet intently reading the newspaper. "Do they look like me? Or are they different in every way?" The page turn reveals startling transformations: The large family becomes Snow White and the seven dwarves; the TV viewer becomes a tortoise; a flying saucer hovers above the newspaper reader. Then: "Do they even exist?... / What if there is nothing at all beyond the walls of my room?" Happily, morning reveals a flute-playing neighbor in apartment 13, a child just the narrator's size, dressed in yellow. The stable compositions and calm tone give the inquiry a sense of whimsy and wonder; there is no existential terror here. Narrator and neighbors present White. A thoughtful, restrained reverie. (Picture book. 4-8)

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November 13, 2020

K-Gr 2-A little girl is moving into a new apartment and is happy to have her own room. As she settles in, she begins to wonder about the people living all around her-above, below, next door-and what their lives and daily activities are like in comparison to her own. Although they are very close in proximity, they are in a sense quite far away, unless or until she gets to know them. In a moment of existentialist contemplation, she even wonders: What if there is nothing and no one at all beyond the walls of her room? Fortunately, she is soon bridging the gap between herself and her neighbors as she ventures out and meets her first potential friend. Saturated black-and-white watercolor illustrations are broken up with small touches of red to identify the main character's placement in the vignettes. As she ventures outside of her apartment, brighter colors subtly begin to emerge signifying an awakening to the wonders of the expanded world beyond her own home. As she takes the first steps away from home and toward her new school, she then begins to wonder what her new classmates will be like. VERDICT This is a quiet, contemplative story that explores the many facets of urban life as well as the ways we think about the lives around us in relation to ourselves. A philosophical beauty, recommended for most collections.-Jessica Marie, Salem P.L., OR

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2020
A young girl moves into a new apartment building. "And I finally have a room all to myself!" she thinks. Upon further reflection, though, she realizes that's not quite accurate. "My ceiling is someone's floor and my floor is someone's ceiling"; the wall is another someone's wall. Musing about what her neighbors might be like, she first pictures the apartments around her full of ordinary people going about their normal lives, and then imagines far more whimsical characters and scenarios in the same layout. She continues to ponder as she gets into bed; an almost-mirror-image shows us a second little girl going to sleep in the adjacent apartment. The two girls meet in the morning and head to school together, which prompts a new line of questioning for our protagonist: what are her new classmates like? Spare text is accompanied by ink illustrations full of tiny, delightful details to discover, rewarding viewers' close attention. Initially, accents of red-orange provide the only color in the black-and-white art, but a bit more creeps in with the delicately colored dawn, and yellow is introduced along with the main character's new friend. The final spread shows the girls walking under a pale blue-and-yellow sky as children in the distance, wearing all different colors, make their way to school as well -- an image cleverly echoed in the patterned endpapers.

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2020
A young girl moves into a new apartment building. "And I finally have a room all to myself!" she thinks. Upon further reflection, though, she realizes that's not quite accurate. "My ceiling is someone's floor and my floor is someone's ceiling"; the wall is another someone's wall. Musing about what her neighbors might be like, she first pictures the apartments around her full of ordinary people going about their normal lives, and then imagines far more whimsical characters and scenarios in the same layout. She continues to ponder as she gets into bed; an almost-mirror-image shows us a second little girl going to sleep in the adjacent apartment. The two girls meet in the morning and head to school together, which prompts a new line of questioning for our protagonist: what are her new classmates like? Spare text is accompanied by ink illustrations full of tiny, delightful details to discover, rewarding viewers' close attention. Initially, accents of red-orange provide the only color in the black-and-white art, but a bit more creeps in with the delicately colored dawn, and yellow is introduced along with the main character's new friend. The final spread shows the girls walking under a pale blue-and-yellow sky as children in the distance, wearing all different colors, make their way to school as well -- an image cleverly echoed in the patterned endpapers. Katie Bircher

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)