The Great Zapfino
by Mac Barnett; illus. by Marla Frazee
Preschool, Primary    Beach Lane/Simon    32 pp.    g
4/22    978-1-5344-1154-8    $17.99
e-book ed.  978-1-5344-1155-5    $10.99

The stage is set, the circus curtains part, and out walks the short, bald, and unassuming Great Zapfino, who will leap from death-defying heights onto a tiny trampoline. Barnett plays up the drama from the story’s breathtaking launch, as the ringmaster promises: “Zapfino will dodge peril and brave calamity in an impossible feat of derring-do!” But after climbing a towering ladder, the performer looks down, glances at readers, and then disappears. In the following wordless scenes, we see him hop on a plane to a sunny seaside town and, fittingly, take a job as an elevator operator in a high rise. This quiet new life is good until he inadvertently starts a fire with his toaster. It is finally in this moment that, in order to save his own life, the man triumphantly leaps from the top floor (“Behold!”) onto a trampoline held by firefighters. Readers can interpret the story in more than one way: does Zapfino overcome a fear of heights in a moment of crisis? Had he merely been tired of the pressure to perform? Perhaps he wants to accomplish the leap all on his own, without a showy cape and the probing eyes of an audience. Most of the story plays out wordlessly in Frazee’s animated grayscale pencil ­illustrations. With its expert pacing and delightful details, this is a splendid collaboration between two picture-book greats.

From the May/June 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.