Umbrella
by Elena Arevalo Melville; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Scallywag    32 pp.
4/24    9781915252371    $18.99

Young Clara, her blank expression joyless, has “no one to play with” at the park. She sees an umbrella on the ground, places it on a bench by a tree, and is startled to hear it thank her for the kindness. “I can do much more than that…Look inside me. Anything is possible!” She opens it (who wouldn’t?), and a friendly cat comes out—answering Clara’s unspoken wish for companionship. When old Mr. Roberts reaches his arms up to the tree from his wheelchair, remembering how he used to pick apples as a boy, Clara assures him that “anything is possible.” She opens the umbrella and out comes…“An elephant?” who helps retrieve apples. Told in the third person by an affable narrator, this offbeat story has humor and heart. Melville’s illustrations are especially effective at telegraphing the characters’ feelings—which are just what the umbrella is attuned to. Along with a limited palette of blues, pinkish red, and creamy whites, the art’s loose lines are idiosyncratic and expressive. Sneaky Mr. Fox tries demanding that the umbrella make him “rich, rich, rich!”; he gets what he deserves. But the beneficent umbrella also gives him a second chance, making the park “absolutely perfect.”

From the May/June 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.