Still Life
by Alex London; illus. by Paul O. Zelinsky
Preschool, Primary    Greenwillow    40 pp.
9/24    9780063229556    $19.99

This inventive picture book skillfully merges two art styles to tell a story within a story, visually pushing boundaries. “This is a still life. It is a painting of objects sitting still. In a still life, nothing moves,” declares the (unreliable) artist narrator. That artist is hard at work painting a still life—of a table, fruit and cheese, paper and ink, and a miniature castle—depicted in a rich style full of detail and texture in direct contrast to the cartoonish flair of the narrator’s world. Throughout, the narrator drones on solemnly about the lack of movement in a still-life painting, or of any need to imagine beyond the moment depicted: “There are no eager mice hiding behind the cloth.” Yes, there are, reveals the art, and they’ve left jammy footprints everywhere despite what the artist says. An exciting, separate visual narrative breaks out in the painting, involving a dragon, a princess, and a knight. The story in the still life culminates in a surprise ending, while the narrator departs, still making assertions about the static properties of still-life paintings. The art has moved the plot along, contradicting the text, and attentive readers are left with more to consider about storytelling in art. The dragon and princess turn up in the pattern of the closing endpapers, giving the idea of stillness one last jolt.

From the ">November/December 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.