Once upon a Book
by Grace Lin and Kate Messner; illus. by Grace Lin
Preschool, Primary    Little, Brown    40 pp.
2/23    9780316541077    $18.99

Cold sleet is falling, and the protagonist of this home-and-back-again adventure tale, Alice, is stuck inside, bored. Then she spots a book on the floor and starts to read: “Once upon a time, there was a girl…She went to a place alive with colors, where even the morning dew was warm.” “That sounds like our home,” says one of the book’s characters (a flamingo), who invites the child into the book. She climbs in and spends time with the animal characters. When it starts to rain, she wishes to be elsewhere, and the camels in the desert on the next spread of the book (one she’s both inhabiting and holding in her hands) invite her to join them: “Turn the page and come in.” And so it goes, the girl on a thrilling journey of the imagination, swimming through a coral reef, floating in space, and much more. At home, Alice has a plush rabbit and rabbit-shaped slippers, but a real (and vigilant) rabbit accompanies her on her journey; readers can seek-and-find it on every spread. The text builds patterns and a pleasing rhythm with repeating sentence structures; children will delight in anticipating what comes next. Lin’s lush full-bleed spreads invite readers to take the journey with Alice, whose dress changes color in each environment, making her blend into every one of the worlds. That Alice is an Asian girl says much about the authors’ wishes for all children to see themselves in the books they read—in this case, quite literally.

From the January/February 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.